Search the Community

As the topic title already show, I am not certain what would be better for a Ranged rogue. Both the Pistol and Blunderbuss have the same range ( according to what I was able to find out that is. ) But their damage is different. The pistol has the higher damage, but that is only one bullet, and the blunderbuss seems to fire 6 bullets. Is the damage for the Blunderbuss per bullet or is it the total damage with all bullets together? ( Most likely a noob question, but I can live with that ... for now. ) Another reason why I ask is because I reached Defiance Bay and on the way there I picked Weapon Focus: Ruffian. The second weapon set are two stilleto's ( One I bought in Gilded Vale. ) just for those moments that a melee fight can not be avoided. Since both a simple Pistol and Blunderbuss cost 1500 on the market in Defiance Bay I would like to know which of the two is more effective in the hands of a Rogue. In case some one wants to know, my Rogue is a male Hearth Orlan with these attributes. Mig: 17 Con: 10 Dex: 19 Per: 13 Int: 10 Res: 9

Heya, So I've completed another enjoyable play through with a primary all caster party and it was fun, definitely got into the whole spell slinging thing. I'm thinking of doing it again, a fast run, but knowing most of the game fairly well, I can do completionist type campaigns pretty quick now. I don't find the game terribly difficult, but I enjoy casually playing so no Expert Mode (hey, I like maimed as an option!) and no Path of the Damned (though I'm tempted to attempt this with a well thought out party, just not yet, want to do a few more play throughs with different approaches to the game first). So I'm thinking of doing what I haven't done yet, and that's a melee based party. I'm also imposing that my character's choices are going to be cruel where possible, and likely kill anyone and anything I can get away with. Will probably steal as often as possible. Will choose aggressive stances in dialogue where cruel is not available. So melee... and cruel. No talking out of things. Just straight up horrible attitude. And I'd like to do it with martial characters since that's not my norm at all. Here's what I'm thinking (feel free to suggest something else!): PC, Paladin (Bleak Walker, Cruel) - Melee DPS (two hand, Mig, Int, Dex; Athletics & Lore) *** Faith & Conviction, Fighting Spirit, Lay on hands, Liberating Exhortation, Reviving Exhortation, Righteous Soul, Zealous Focus *** The Black Path, Critical Focus, Two hand style, Weapon Focus Adventurer Fighter - Primary Tank (Per, Res, Con and some Int; Althetics & Lore) *** Constant Recover, Defender, Knock Down, Vigorous Defense, Unbending *** Rapid Recovery, Wary Defender, Weapon & Shield Style, Superior Deflection Fighter - Melee DPS (two hand, estoc probably for DR; Mig, Int, Dex; Athletics & Lore) *** Armored Grace, Confident Aim, Constant Recovery, Knock Down (2), Fighting Spirit, Weapon Spec Adventurer *** Two hand style, Vulnerable Attack, Weapon Focus Adventurer, Weapon Mastery Adventurer Barbarian - Melee DPS (two hand, reach weapon, AOE; Mig, Int, Dex; Athletics & Lore) *** Blooded, Brute Force, Carnage, Fighting Spirit, Frenzy, One Stands Alone, Savage Defiance *** Barbaric Blow, Greater Frenzy, Accurate Carnage, Two hand style Rogue - Melee DPS (primary mechanic, condition & sneak attacks; Mig, Int, Dex; Mechanics & Lore) *** Crippling Strike, Deep Wounds, Dirty Fighting, Fighting Spirit, Reckless Assault, Sneak Attack, Withering Strike *** Backstab, Viscous Fighting, One-handed style, Bloody Slaughter From here, I'm wondering.... off-tank Priest or melee reach Priest? Or a 2nd Rogue? Interested in some thoughts. Very best,

This build is a solid choice for a TCS run and has been thoroughly tested by me. I'm sure quite a few people have come up with something similar by now, but my recorded TCS run might serve as a nice basic strategy guide for people wanting to use this build for a run of their own. Here is the playlist of my run: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrU0fsUmH2FaASxfjRn9medY4YyQQOZZZ And here is a video about dealing with Thaos: https://youtu.be/ynynYV2IJjs Build Moon Godlike, Rogue, Deadfire, Merchant Stat distribution: 18 3 17 3 18 18 Abilities - Crippling Strike, Reckless Assault, Blinding Strike, Dirty Fighting, Withering Strike, Deathblows Talents - Dual Wielding, Shadowing Beyond, Deflecting Assault, Vicious Fighting, Bloody Slaughter, Quick Item Slots Talent Rewards - The Merciless Hand (Doemenel route) - Dungeon Delver (Twin Elms, Girl in the inn, Help the adventurers) Skills - Stealth 5 (Required to sneak past Caed Nua throne room Spectres), Lore 10 (8 if you find Glanfathan Adraswen), Mechanics 7 (Requires two or three +1 inn rests throughout the game), Spare points into Survival. Very important items - Shod in Faith (Smith, Knights Castle in Defiance Bay) - Rotfinger Gloves (Merchant, Ondra's Gift) - Minion summoning figurines Good items to have - Azureith's Stiletto (Smith, Gilded Vale) - Gaun's Share (Temple of Eothas, Gilded Vale, Dangerious to get early on) - Äru-Brekr (Looted from the group trying to steal the Foge Knight research papers) - Blunting Belt (Smith, Gilded Vale) - Ring of Protection (Random loot, Merchant in Copperlane) - Ring of Deflection (Random loot, Merchant in Copperlane) - Glanfathan Adraswen (Random loot) Endgame weapons - Starcaller (Market, Hearthsong) - We Toki (Larha in Galawain's Maw, Oldsong)

Hello there forum , so with upcoming Patch 1.05 bringing ton of changes to our game , i decided to start my 3rd Playtrough for the new patch , with Min/Maxed Ranged Rogue PC meanwhile using "story companions" to support this character as hard as they can . I am going to play simple Path of the Damned , without any strings attached ( no Trial no Expert ).Here i make this topic so you could help me find best choices for this build , also to discuss anything that is related to Ranged Rogue and Player Character specific buffs and Min/Max'ing .Try to keep the discussion about Ranged Rogue only ( No Ranger , no Cipher discussion and no melee Rogue either) , also keep in mind that Max damage is the key and the point of this build not dialogue choices or anything else like that , so dont mix it into this thread . Thank You ! Spoiler Heavy ! Let's begin. Race Choice : Hearth Orlan Living Lands(Might 18 Con 3 Dex 18 Per ? Int 18 Res ?) OR Wood Elf Living Lands (Might 19 Con 3 Dex 19 Per ? Int 18 Res ?) We got two Race choice's . At the moment i am leaning towards Hearth Orlan(Full Crit focused Build) but Wood Elf and its +Accuracy is always an option(This is POTD and Accuracy=Crit),also Wood Elfs tend to get better attributes and you can start 19 Might 19 Dex or 18 Might 20 Dex , meanwhile Orlan can get as good as 18 Might and 18 Dex only, but their racial is BEAST . Any1 choosing Wood Elf over Hearth Orlan ? Why ? Why Not ? Attributes : Max Might , Max Dex , Max Int - These are the obvious choice's not much to discuss here tho ATM i am prioritizing Might over Dex all the way (Speed is nice but the damage just gets real with more Might and it doesnt scale that good with more Dex imo) Anyone maxing Dex over Might ? Going something like 18 Might 20 Dex Wood elf builds ? Why ? Why not ? Min Con - No use for constitution at all , this character is supposed to never get hit and use Shadowing Beyong if he does get targeted . Attributes choice : Perception or Resolve ? So After Maxing MIGHT,DEX,INT , Minimazing Con , we still got arround 12 Points left to almost max either Perception or Resolve . If interrupts were any good ( Maybe they will be after 1.05? ) Perception would be obvious choice ( also fits the class in general rpg sense ) , How Valuable is Some concentration(Resolve) if we never getting hit , also having high resolve would help WIll defense ( paired with max INT = much will , no charms ? ) . I am lost here , what would be your prefered choice ? Both seem to have little impact . That is why it is always hardest choice for me here when making a ranged rogue . Skill Points Distribution : Stealth X , Athletics 3 , Lore 0 , Mechanics 2(Class) , Survival 10 . So the idea here is to get 3 Athletics for basic needs , and Max Survival ( Using potion or two every fight on this character is gona be a thing , even on trash fights etc , more into that later ) , after survival i put rest points into Stealth, 2 Points in Mechanics from Class will be enough to cover early game needs , after that just gona dedicate one of the companions to have 10 , not planing to use even single scroll with my ranged marksman so Lore = 0 . Talent Build : Marksman > Shadowing Beyond (OH Sheet button, not gona run full glasscanon without this, getting it as early as i can either) > Vicious Fighting > Penetrating Shot > Bloody Slaughter - Self Explanatory Here Max Red Numbers . Last Talent Choice: Weapon Focus Adventurer / Devastating Blows / Envenomed Strike / Interrupting Blows(If Maxed Per over Res) . Last talent choice is unclear , what would be your choice out of these ? Devastating Blows +2% seems pathetic kinda... Interrupting Blows might be a thing after 1.05 ? anyone tested it ? WF: A is always a decent choice so is Envenomed Strike's ( Not that good with a bow tho ) . What is your opinion here ? what would you choose ? why this and not that ? Skills Choice : Level 1 : Blinding Strike / Crippling Strike ? - Which one is better for ranged rogue ? why do you think so ? Blidning clearly better debuff but Crippling is 2 per encounter . Level 3 : Dirty Fighting - Obvious Choice Level 5 : Finishing Blow / Deep Wounds / Level 1 Skill ? - Confused Here Level 5 and 7 you can take 2 out of these 3 skills which ones you go for ? Why ? Level 7 : Finishing Blow / Deep Wounds / Level 1 Skill ? - Same as above Level 9 : Withering Strike / Fearsome Strike ? - Same choice like lvl 1 , which 1 is better ? 1 Per rest ( sets up deathblows ) or 2 per encounter ( 1 debuff only ) Level 11 : DeathBlows - R.I.P Enemy Weapon Choice : War Bow - Borresaine / Cloudpiercer - Which one is better ? Stunning seems to be way to go for me is Jolting Touch striking worth it ? and The Rain of Godagh Field for endgame. 2nd Set : Arbalest for Alpha Strike - Is it worth to open with arbalest and switch to war bow? Too time Consuming maybe(Without quick switch it takes long to recover) ? What is your Opinion ? Other Items : Best i can get (+3Might , +3 Dex ,+2/3 Int , +2/3 Perc/Resolve , +Crit) Armor : Clothing + Gwisk Glas /Jack of Wide Waters - When i need more armor/survival/2nd chance ill swap clothing for those 2 . Any other good armors to consider ? Buffs Choice,Faction Choice, PC Talents Choice : In general i am leaning towards stacking might with every buff possible ( Inns,Courtesans) , any1 consider to stack Dex instead ? A little bit of Both ? Why and why not ? Here are the Buffs and Talents available trough the game : Mob Justice ( Dozens +5 Acc ) or Merciless Hand ( Doemenel +0.3 Crit Dmg ) - This is important choice , what would be better stacking even more accuracy or going for crit damage ? does this one stack with Dungeon Delver ? I am leaning towards Merciless Hand , but going Merciless Hand + Hearth Orlan over Dozens+Wood Elf is huge accuracy loss in the end , that is why there is a decision here . Galawain ( +1Might+1Athletics ) or Skaen ( +1Dex+1Survival) Wild Running (+Defenses ) or Dungeon Delver ( +0.1 Crit ) - Does this stack with Merciless Hand ? Salty Mast Boon Choice(Much faction them courtesans) +2Might+2Const (Alternative +2Dex+2Const) Sacrifice Companion Choice (SO CRUEL :D) Sagani(+1Per+2Accuracy) or Hiravias (+1Dex+1DT) Food Choice : +2/3Might Egg/Beef or Dragon (Alternative +2Dex) Inn Choice before Important Fights : Dragon's Lair +2Might+2Int+2Cons (Alternative+2Dex or +4 Int) Gift From the Machine(+1Might) ,Blooded Hunter(+1Stealth),Song of the Heavens(+1Per), Scale-Breaker Potions Choice : 1 Healing + 3 DPS / 2 DPS + Figurine - Most Likely 3 DPS Potions and 1 Healing that restores alot of endurance instantly Eldricht Aim(Stacks with what? What does this potion replace which buffs ? ) , Potion of Power , Potion of Merciless Gaze(Stacking? Does this Stack with Paladins Crit Aura ? if it replaces paladins crit aura there is no point to take pallegina as companion then ) , Potion of Deleterious Alacrity of Motion ( This is beast but only available from mid game in big quantities ) Companions : Eder Main Tank , Aloth 2ndOT+Debuffer+CC ,Durance Buffer/Healer+Gunner Arquebus(+Marking for PC from that endgame Arquaebus), Kana 1st OT+Buffs+Summons+Reload&Fire Chants ( Does Fire weapon chant enhance ranged ones ? ) Last Companion Choice : Pallegina (Crit Aura ) / Grieving Mother (Cipherlol) - If Merciless Gaze Potion replaces Palladin's crit aura there is no choice here then , just taking GM .( Question here is if Palladins Crit aura is Exclusive is 5% of crit worth whole cipher maybe it is if thats 5% i cant get anywhere else ! ) Planing to use Wizard to setup Sneak Attacks for Rogue and Control the fight , priest to buff the rogue and heal the others , Eder for maintanking , Kana for Reload and Fire weapon chants . Going to do first part as a party of 5 until i can get trough Caed Nua then picking either Pallegina or GM , leaning towards GM at the moment . Post your insights , advice and criticism , and help me make those choices , i know most of them seems pretty small but all of them together forms that one max damage build . I Will try to update the thread with your ideas and keep it documented , for people who want to min/max a true marksman .

Dual Wielding "Stiletto" Rogue aka. "Sneak Attack" Rogue, "Crit Monster" Rogue, "Death by a Thousand Cuts" Rogue, "Glass Cannon" Game Difficulty: HARD Class: Rogue Race: Meadow Folk (Additional Accuracy and Damage when below 50% Endurance) - Human (+1 Might, +1 Resolve) (Hearth Orlan is also a good choice for the additional "hit to crit") Background: The Living Lands (+ 1 MIGHT) Drifter (+1 Stealth, +1 Survival) For RP Purposes for my character, I chose Drifter. Choose Laborer, Merchant, or Scientist if you want to start with Mechanics. This Rogue is a Dual Stiletto-wielding Rogue. This build is all about the CRITS, FAST ATTACKS, and DR bypass. You are a Glass Cannon, the main single-target, damage dealer. You rely on Sneak Attack critical damage from your auto-attacks. It is important to keep up Sneak Attack conditions on your enemies for maximum damage, so you need a little help from Wizard's or Cipher's AoE debuffs. Micromanagement is needed if you want this build to be effective. Why STILETTO? Why not Daggers? Stilettos have +3 DR bypass. Daggers have +5 Accuracy. Accuracy is very easy to get using buffs from your NPC companions. Debuffing Deflection is also easy. So Dagger's +5 Accuracy is a little meh. You can get Unique Stilettos very early in the game (Azurieth's Stiletto from Gilded Vale and Oidhreacht from Level 1 Endless Paths). There are only 2 Unique Daggers in the game. You get 4 for Stiletto. Stilettos also benefit from the talent Vulnerable Attack. (3 DR bypass + 5 DR bypass = 8 DR Bypass [11 for Bleak Fang]) Starting Attributes: I've seen builds that are dump stat-ed to death. I didn't want that for my character. I still want to retain a little RP, if you know what I mean. MIG - 20 - I wanted to max this stat for max damage. CON - 8 - I would've dumped this like other people, but I don't want my character to be a complete wuss. DEX - 18 - For fast attacks. PER - 14 - For reasonable Interrupt, Deflection, and Reflex INT - 10 - You really don't need this stat for the Rogue, but I don't want my character to be dumb either. RES - 8 - I really don't need Concentration. For conversation stat checks (INT/RES), wear items and consume food with stats. Also use resting bonus. Abilities Blinding Strike - Debuff for Sneak Attack (Full Attack) Crippling Strike - Debuff for Sneak Attack (Full Attack) Deathblows - x2 Damage on top of Sneak Attack damage. Deep Wounds - Raw Damage over time. Dirty Fighting - For Crits Reckless Assault - For Melee Accuracy and Damage Talents Two Weapon Style - +20% Melee Attack Speed (this balances out the negative from Vulnerable Attack) Vulnerable Attack - +5 DR bypass, -20% Melee Attack Speed Vicious Fighting - For Crits Savage Attack - For Damage Bloody Slaughter - For Crits Weapon Focus: Ruffian - +6 Accuracy Quest-acquired Talents The Merciless Hand - +30% Crit multiplier Gift from the Machine - +1 Might, x1.05 Max Endurance Dungeon Delver - +10% Crit multiplier Song of the Heavens - +1 Perception, +2 DR Shock Blooded Hunter - +1 DR Slash/Pierce, +1 Stealth Galawain's Boon - +1 Might, +1 Athletics Gear (please refer to PoE Wiki for item locations) Weapons Early game Unique Stiletto Azureith's Stiletto - Spell Striking: Jolting Touch: Grants Jolting Touch Oidhreacht - Draining: 20% of Damage restored as Endurance End game Unique Stiletto Bleak Fang - Upgraded to Superb Enchantment, Spell Striking: Touch of Rot, Rending 3 DR Bypass Misery's End - Upgraded to Superb Enchantment, Burning Lash +25% Damage, Vicious +20% Damage against Prone/Stunned/Flanked, Slaying: Vessel Ranged Weapon - for alpha strike Forgiveness - early game Dulcanale - end game Endgame Armor and Accessories Azaalin's Helmet - +10% Crit multiplier Lilith's Shawl (Neck)- +3 Perception, +1 Stealth Gauntlet's of Puissant Melee - +10% Melee Damage Pensiavi mes Rei (Ring) - +3 Might Ring of Thorns - +3 Dex, +5 Reflex, +20 Defense while Stunned/Prone Vengiatta Rugia (Light Armor) - Retaliate, +10% Damage to Flanked, Enchanted +2 to Intellect (Just to increase range of Watcher abilities and debuff durations) Boots of Speed +3 - Move fast, kill fast. Nuff said. Good for scouting too! Belt - You can either use Blunting Belt (+5 Slash/Pierce DR), Belt of Eotun Constitution (+3 CON), or Broad Belt of Power (+2 Might, +2 Resolve). Endgame Attributes Level: 12 Mig: 25 (26, if you choose to sacrifice Eder on the Blood Pool. lel) Con: 8 (11, if I use the +3 CON Belt) Dex: 21 Per: 18 Int: 12 Res: 8 (10, if I use Broad Belt of Power) Endgame Skills Stealth: 8 (2 points are from item and talent) Athletics: 5 Lore: 0 Mechanics: 10 (12, if you have Gloves of Manipulation) Survival: 5 End game character stats: Health 632/632 Endurance 166/158 Damage Primary: 22-31 Pierce Secondary: 22-31 Pierce Accuracy Primary: 84 (90, if with Paladin's Zealous Focus) Secondary: 84 (90, if with Paladin's Zealous Focus) Interrupt 24 Concentration 69 Deflection 46, Fortitude 79, Reflex 96, Will 53 Damage Reduction 10 Slash 16, Crush 13, Pierce 19, Burn 8, Shock 12, Corrode 8 My Character's End Game Personal Record (Click links for party NPC comparisons) Enemies Defeated: 1190 Crits: 2267 Hits: 1881 Total Damage Done: 152977 --- Please feel to comment or criticize. Thanks!

* As the Topic title mentions, I am looking for a good balanced Melee Rogue build with out min maxing. Since I do not play on hard and up ( Not so far at least. ) their is no need for min maxing in my opinion. * I have a ranged Rogue and I certainly like him, but on these forums I some times see people mention that a Melee Rogue is even more dangerous then a ranged one. Now curious as I am I would like to try and see whether that is true or not. * Now I am well aware that a Melee Rogue is not a tank, but I hope some of you know a good balanced Melee Roguee build that will not go down in 1 or 2 hits? But at the same time He/She would be able to make sure the enemy is aware how dangerous a Rogue can be up close? ( at least long enough to put the hurt on the enemy and then move out of danger some how? )

Hello people. I would like the community's help on a matter. I want to pick a class and i just can't decide which.I'm torn between a few because they each have some of my prefered playstyles. I like to use tactics and outwit my opponents. I liked the Shadow class from Dragon Age Origins.It has stealth,illusions,bombs and different poisons,basicly loads of fun. I tend to like summoning classes that are more active.Think WoW's warlock and Titan Quest's Spirit. I just want a fun,active and skillfull playstyle.So,that being said,i've reduced my classes to the following: 1.Rogue = in this game it feels too passive with no neat tricks and a few active abilities.You position and auto-attack. 2.Chanter = would've liked more dark and gritty summons but it's ok.It feels passive and it takes long to get them out.Most fights are finished by then. 3.Cipher = I play him melee with focus on illusions and deception.Almost no nukes.But it feels like i'm on the cipher band wagon with everybody and their grandma already there. Please help this poor wretched soul finally pick a class and finish the game(rerolled like 10-15 times)...

I'll be short: Diffuculty: Easy Roleplay: Assassin About self: Casual player This was the second playthrough, so I know the basics. This knowledge helps me a bit, but still I can not say that the playthrough was really easy. Movies: 1. Leyra (sorry for a language, next videos are in English) 2. Zombies 3. Sky Dragon (this was tricky) 4. Adra Dragon (LMAO) 5. Thaos (really hard, all thanks to "Starcaller") Character sheet: Ok, on videos you see everything is looking easy. Actually, this was not easy everytime. Any large group of enemies may kill Rogue within seconds, especially darguls, cean gula, fampyrs. I'd avoided most of really dangerous encounters, I am not a battlemage and I don't know how "to use environment" Either run away, either fight. FYI "Solo on PotD" thread: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/76328-solo-play-tips-not-exploits-potd/ Playing as Rogue I've missing something special for this class like these: One trap problem. 2-3 traps will be good. At least, why Clerics are able to set up as many traps as they wish? Abilities problem. Either make some of them per encounter or add more free points to choose more abilities on level up. Stealth problem. High level stealth is not working as expected! Stealth skill above 5-6 points looks useless. In the end I wish to tell that, probably, most intresting part of a rogue is the "Thief" roleplay (RES based). Rogue is a weakest of all classes because of lack of magic abilities and spells. There is no AoE attacks except Watcher's one (they are almost non-combat). And, perphaps, RES based rogue will be interested as a candidate to gain the achievment "less 175 kills". Meantime, due the bad stealth mechanic (it is mob level based) you can not avoid all encounters if you wish to have high points in mechanic skill to avoid traps and use picklocks to leveling. However, I am happy that the game is possible to complete solo as a rogue. Thanks to Obsidian!

Step 1: Equip a weapon with Coordinating (+4 accuracy / * 1.25 damage when attacking same enemy as an ally) Step 2: Enable your Reckless Assault Step 3: Attack an enemy with your 5 teammates Well, the damage and accuracy would be ridiculous. My rogue has 400 + accuracy, and the damage is 28k to 40K. However, his deflection becomes -286, which means Reckless Assault stacks with itself too many times. Please fix.

Hi adventurers! I am very happy to share with you my new victory: After finishing the game Solo in normal mode 1 week ago (remember HERE), I finally achieved the Game in Solo and Path of the Damned! http://i.imgur.com/wkUDqTgh.jpg http://i.imgur.com/88bFM8yh.jpg http://i.imgur.com/bvGFuiKh.jpg I achieved this with a Rogue once again, with a Retribution / Tank build. I you guys are intrested, I will make a post to explain the detail of my full build and the strat I used to defeat this last boss! Triple Crown solo, here I come Did some of you manage to finish the game in PotD solo too? Cheers !

Hey guys! Here is finally the video of the final boss in PotD with my Rogue with all the explanations you need! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=562MPFJzgOc I hope you'll enjoy it ! Sorry in advance for my bad english and accent, i'm french you know Cheers

Heyo I have been lurking both here and the Reddit sub for a while, and been reading all the fun builds people have theory crafted. After finishing the game on normal, cheesing my way through with 5 rangers and a cipher, I decided to try and rerun the game solo, going for the Triple Crown Solo, and starting with the hard difficulty. Was wondering if anyone could help recommend a good solo build, I especially had the Cipher kite and run and Rogue retaliation tank builds that are currently popular on this sub but any suggestions are welcome. Also if you wouldn't mind touching into gear, talents, attributes etc.

Hello adventurers! 0. Introduction Let me first introduce myself : I have been playing Baldur's gate the day it was released. I was young and innocent, and I never could finish it as a kid as it looked impossible to me. Since they re-released it last year, I totally jumped on the opportunity to avenge myself and I managed to solo it. I absolutely wanted to accomplish the same challenge for this awesome game that is Pillars of Eternity. So far, I managed to reach the final boss in normal mode with absolutely no companion, and with a Rogue, and as it seems to be a challenge that a lot of you want to realize, I decided to share my experience with you all so you could try on your side. Don't expect me to detail every fight of the game or on how to get each item, 'cause they are numerous and because the behavior of monsters are random. I will try to explain you all the tips, tricks and ideas i used to get this far. 1. Why chosing a Rogue? I always loved the Rogue of 4 mains reasons : - If you have the initiative of the fight, you can quickly 1 shot a mob (Especially with Crossbows) - Mecanics and Stealth allow you to gather a lot of treasures fast and overstuff your character - Mecanics that allows you to remove Traps and use them before starting a fight - The Vanish in combat that allows you to run out of a fight (extremely useful late game when you have scripted fight and you need your placement to be perfect before starting the fight again) 2. What stats to take during the creation? - Main stats: I maxed out the STR and the DEX. But to be honest, if I had to do it again, I would probably balance them a bit more with some more defensive stats - Secondary stats: As explained above: Mecanics above all > Stealth secondary 3. Cap'tain Obvious tips and tricks before starting your adventure This is common sense, but still a small remider to think all along the adventure: - Buy food at the tavern. This is not expensive at all and gives you great bonuses for each fight (I personally prefer the Chicken as it lasts 5 minutes and gives you Resistance and Endurance bonuses) - Sleep at the tavern. Small bonuses make the difference - Gather potions, love them. They will save you and allow you to win fights more than anything else - Don't forget to get tents - Try to do as many side quests as possible. They are your main source of XP and Magical items, and you know how much it matters 4. Your adventure has just started! What gear should I take? Hi fellows, now that your rogue is created and ready to fight! I will try to detail here the different gears I used all along my way. - First rule: Even though it's tempting to sell all those shining armors for coins, I would hardly recommend you to keep 1 Copy of each specific amor / weapon / necklace and such in your storage, and expecially the magical onces as they will be usefull in a situation soon or late (trust me on this). - Second rule: ALWAYS use a shield. I know this can be frustrating not to use 2 handed weapons, or Dual weapons. Unfortunately, you are playing solo, and this means that you will have to tank a minimum. The Shield offers ones of the best protection for a few drawbacks: You will lose a tiny bit of accuracy which should be compensated if you have a high DEX. > I used the Round Shield for the most part of my adventure as it offers a good protection for a minimal accuracy loss. - What main weapon to use? For here, you have the freedom to use the 1h weapon of your choice. I would highly recommand swords that benefits for the Life Leech enchant (20% of your damages restored as Endurance) as they greatly increase your survivability. I used the Oidhreacht until the end of the game : Life Leech + Reduction Damage + High attack speed (more interruptions, more possible actions) are one of the best combo for a weapon in solo. - Secondary weapon? For the first part of the game, I highly recommand you to get an Arbalest as soon as possible. You will find one of good quality in Anslög's Compass that I kept for a long time. Why that? Because for engaging groups of monsters, this is simply the best early game: get into stealth mode, initiate the fight with your Arbalest, one shot a monster (you can hit up to 70 dmg if you crit, perfect initiation), then swap to your shield / dagger stance before the mobs get at your contact. (it will be all detailed later) - Armor / Rings / amulet ? The rest of the gear is totally up to you, but here are some suggestions of items i used all along my adventure: * I prefered the Leather armor as it is protects you enough against physical attacks and doesn't slow you down too much. * Belt: I highly recommand the classic Blunting Belt, especially early game to compensate the lack of defense * Ring: Contextual: I mainly use the Ring of Protection in addition to the Ring of Deflection for an optimal defense, but also use the Bartender's Ring when having to face hard CC's packs * Coat: Contextual. Try to get the Amulet of Summer Solstice as soon as you reach Dryford as it will greatly increase your AoE cleaning capability early / mid game You have to keep in mind that those items are contextual: the 1h weapon can be swapped with a blunt weapons if you fight skeletons, you can use the cloak of Cold Protection if you have to face shadows (sorry i forgot the exact name) and so on. Be smart, if you play solo you need to have a huge gear arsenal and use it wisely. 5. Combat mecanics : How to face huge packs of mobs This is the most tricky part of the solo game. You will have to face packs of mobs, and some of them won't give you a single second of rest because of their CC's. But you are a thief! You are smart, and you need to use your brain. There are currently multiple ways I fought packs of mobs, and it all depends on the environment you're fighting on. Initiation This is the most important part of the fight. It will probably define the success or failure of the rest of your battle. You absolutely need to initiate your fight to get a significant advantage on your opponent! How to pefectly initiate: - Analyse your environment and chose the right place to fight before starting the battle (Explanations about this point right after) - Set up traps that you gather all along your adventure thanks to your mecanism. Set them where there is most likely the chance that mobs will walk on it when they'll be packed - Use stealth mode and your Arbalest at max range on the mob that you wanna see dead first (i recommand mages if there are some) - Pray for a crit - Swap weapons, run to the spot you prepared with the trap - (Optionnal) Drink buff potions if needed before the mobs touch you - Fight to death The right spots to fight : * In dungeons / houses / Caves The first thing to do before starting a fight is to study your environment and looking for the narrows corridors: Example : the places circled in green are the good places to fight. Those are the pefect places to fight because all the monsters won't be able to be at your contact in the same time, they will stack and eventually allow you to hit them thanks to some spells like Sunbeam graned by the Amulet of Summer Solstice. *Outside The outside fights are the tricky ones. You can't really cheat because there aren't usually many narrow places to fight. But this is where your Vanish skill will be the most useful. You will notice that the mobs in a pack are not totally linked to each other. Which means that if you can attack a mob that is far enough of the rest of the pack, you have a good chance that the other ones won't come to his help. Here are the steps to make some isolated victims before fighting the rest of the pack: - Set up a trap where the monster is most likely to walk on it - Use stealth mode - Use your arbalest to pull a mob at max range - Pray for a crit > There is a good chance that at this point for the monster you pulled to be dead. A arbalest shot + a trap are most of the time enough to kill any common monster of this game. If not, I advice you to reload the game and to try again. - See how many mobs are running to you. If you pull from far enough, only a part of the pack may come to fight. - If the monsters are too numerous, use Vanish, run away, and start again from the first step. Conclusion And it's over for my tiny guide (for now!) I hope you liked it and I hope that it will give you inspiration to handle this game in Solo which is a super huge challenge. As explained, for now i'm stuck on the final boss so I can't really give you advices on him, but if some of you like it and comment it, I will probably edit this guide and add more details about other bosses or quests ! Good luck :D ( And sorry if my english is not perfect, i'm French )

I started a game with my PC as a fighter. I have picked up the companions who are a chanter, priest, fighter, ranger, and wizard. I'm running into problems of being unable to open locks. I'd rather avoid wasting gold on custom characters if I can help it. I checked the wiki and there isn't a rogue companion. I just reached Defiance Bay but I still have some quests at Gillded Vale. Who is the best companion to train as a lock picker and trap dectector?

Level 3 Rogue with Stealth 4, Mechanics 4 At the beginning of the game, slow mode would allow for trap detection and sneaking up on enemies, with the circle under the character filling up to indicate stealth status. But now no traps seem to get detected at all, and more importantly, the character gets spotted instantly whenever he comes within sight of an enemy. No GUI circles filling up or anything. This happens with xaulips and small spiders and any kind of enemy, so I don't think their perception is so much higher than my stealth to warrant an instant detection, hence why I suspect a bug. Stealth doesn't seem to work for any other characters in the party, either.

I unfortunately lack access to the backer beta, and so in my research to figure out what class I'll play on my first runthrough of the game I'm finding myself wondering about how 'active' some of the classes are. Specifically I'm interesting in rolling a more melee oriented character, however I'm concerned about how many of the abilities on the melee classes actually involve active use vs. giving passive buffs. From what I can tell it seems like the Fighter and Paladin, for instance, have a lot of abilities that just buff their own combat capabilities or that of their party whilst having relatively few abilities which are actively cast. Any suggestions on what melee oriented classes are the most 'active' to play?

Sorry for the newb thread, but I searched the forum and google, and didn't find anything useful. The question is: how do you play the Rogue class properly ... as an actual rogue? I feel like I'm just a ranged dps character most of the time, with reckless attack turned on constantly. What am I doing wrong? :-p

Description: When leveling up my rogue character, he gets the option to chose the talent "Devastating Blow" on level 3, which improves "Finishing Blow". However, he does not get "Finishing Blow" until level 4. Expected: I would expect to gain the base talent first, before the improvement of said base talent. Reproduce: 1. Create a new rogue character in Backer Beta 2. Start game and level up twice

I really like the scouting mechanism in this game. I found, you can reach almost any place without fighting, which was what I was hoping for. Sadly the radius for you being spotted is getting bigger when you go below 3 Group members. It makes sense when you want to avoid people doing solo runs, but it makes no sense at all from an RPG-perspective. You should be even sneakier alone than with a group of people. For fighting I would love to see the backstab make a return in this game. I loved that mechanism. The replacement in form of high damage from a rogue in the first seconds of the fight is a really poor one. I might be able to kill something small that way very quickly, but it just doesn't feel anywhere as powerful as a real backstab. On top of that, this also makes no sense at all from an RPG-perspective. A one strike kill would be the way to go for a sneaky rogue.

Update by Josh Sawyer, Project Director Welcome! First things first: if you have backed Pillars of Eternity but not yet completed your order on our website, please do so as soon as possible. Even if you have an all-digital order, we need information from you to make sure you get everything you are supposed to. If your backer tier includes an NPC, item, portrait, or other custom piece of content, an early response will make it easier for us to work with you on your designs and preferences. As always, we appreciate that our backers have made Pillars of Eternity possible and we want to ensure that you get your money's worth. Broken Age As most of you know, our friends at Double Fine have their new adventure game, Broken Age, coming out today. Double Fine and their Kickstarter adventure game paved the way for all of the games that came after - including Pillars of Eternity. If you are fans of the adventure game genre (or just fans of good games from indie studios), show them some love. You can find more about it on their website. Update Engwithan ruins sitting atop some cliffs. Things are going well at Obsidian on the Pillars of Eternity team. The artists are putting the finishing touches on the second of our two big cities, Twin Elms, and the environments look fantastic. Our designers are busy implementing narrative and quest content, in some cases returning to earlier areas to fill in cracks and flesh elements out more. The character artists are almost done taking all of our highest-priority creatures to alpha level and are starting to look at the second string of creatures and variants. Animation is right behind them, creating rigs and alpha animations as new creatures come online, and we're finally returning to our main character animations for a second pass. Programming continues to chug away at user interfaces, AI, and zany spells and many other items on our long list of features. In short, we're well past "the hump" and the game is looking and feeling better every day. Heavy Hitters In most RPG parties, there's a character type that focuses on dealing death to VIPs in the enemy roster. They are the heavy hitters, the characters who cut enemies down one-by-one with precise, overpowering attacks. We've previously talked about one of our heavy hitters, the cipher. Ciphers alternate between powerful mental attacks and the physical strikes used to power them. They are the only "caster" class that focuses heavily on individual enemies, in large part because their abilities all require an external concentration of soul energy to serve as a power source. In contrast to the cipher, the rogue and the ranger are more traditional, but just as deadly. Rogues rely on the vulnerability of their enemies to inflict devastating attacks in close quarters. Rangers coordinate their strikes with the help of animal companions, creatures with whom rangers form lifelong bonds. Outside of direct combat, rogues and rangers share a skill emphasis in Stealth and are commonly the sneakiest party members. But while rogues also have a specialization in Mechanics (most often to lay traps and deal with ones placed by their enemies), rangers focus on Survival, which improves the duration of many consumable items. Though the three "heavy hitter" classes have different styles of play with different strengths, they all excel at taking enemies down in the shortest amount of time possible. In Pillars of Eternity, the designation of a character as a "rogue" signifies their vicious, brutal style of fighting, not a propensity for theft or deception. More than any other class, rogues exemplify the adage that the best defense is a good offense. If fighters are the disciplined, reliable, well-trained units that hold the line, rogues are the shock troops that attempt to break through that line to take out vulnerable units before they can effectively retaliate. When pinned down, rogues can suffer from their weak defenses, but ideally they carry their momentum from one target to the next in short order. All rogues start with three abilities that allow them to immediately dive into heavy-hitting: Finishing Blow, Reckless Assault, and Dirty Fighting. Finishing Blow (Active) - Full Attack. This ability gains power the more damaged the target is. When the rogue uses a Finishing Blow, he or she makes a full attack at the enemy with his or her current weapons. The attack is made with an Accuracy bonus and does +50% damage if it hits. For every 1% under 50% Max Stamina the target has, the attack does an additional +3% damage. 3/rest. Reckless Assault (Modal) - In this mode, a rogue's Deflection is lowered but he or she gains a bonus to Accuracy and damage with all weapons. Dirty Fighting - 10% of the rogue's Hits with any melee or ranged weapon are turned into Crits. This occurs after the initial attack roll is resolved. The resulting shift is displayed in the combat log. As rogues advance, they gain access to abilities that allow them to maximize the damage and afflictions they can dish out to their targets. They can also learn a variety of tricks to help them get out of trouble when the going gets tough. Sneak Attack - Sneak Attack applies bonus damage to the rogue's ranged and melee weapon attacks when the target has any of the following statuses: Blinded, Flanked, Hobbled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Prone, Stuck, Stunned, or Weakened. It also applies to any target the rogue strikes with a weapon within the first 2 seconds of combat starting. Escape (Active) - Escape allows the rogue to break Engagement and safely move away from their current location. The ability must be targeted on open ground to which the rogue has a clear path. When activated, the rogue immediately breaks Engagement and swiftly moves to that location. 1/encounter. Crippling Strike (Active) - Full Attack. Inflicts extra damage and the Hobbled condition. 2/encounter. Coordinated Positioning (Active) - You are able to instantly switch positions with one target within 1m. If this is an ally, the switch is automatic. If it is an enemy, the maneuver is an attack against its Reflexes (only succeeds on a Hit or Crit). The switch is immediate and cancels Engagement (if any) on the rogue. 2/encounter. Adept Evasion - 50% of all Grazes against a rogue's Reflexes are converted to Misses. Blinding Strike (Active) - Full Attack. Inflicts extra damage and the Blinded condition. 2/rest. Deathblows - Against any target that is afflicted by two or more of the conditions that can allow Sneak Attack, rogues do additional Sneak Attack damage. Resident heavy-hitting rogue, Edér. Rangers are expert sharpshooters with any ranged weapon. Though they traditionally rely on bows and crossbows, some use firearms or even magical implements. Regardless of their choice of armament, even novice rangers can strike swiftly and leave severe wounds that quickly wear down an enemy's stamina and movement. They are assisted in their efforts by their animal companions, incredibly tough and loyal creatures who share their lives (literally) with their masters. All rangers start with the following three abilities: Animal Companion - The ranger begins the game with (and can name) an animal companion that fights at his or her direction. This companion shares Health and Stamina with the ranger, i.e. if either one is damaged, the same pool is reduced. Both the ranger and the animal companion die if their Health is reduced to zero. Animal companions have high inherent Damage Thresholds that allow them to run interference for their masters. Wounding Shot (Active) - Only usable when ranged weapons are equipped. The ranger's shot inflicts a continuous damage effect and Hobbles the target. 3/rest. Swift Aim (Modal) - This mode increases the ranger's rate of fire and reload with ranged weapons at the cost of an Accuracy penalty. At higher levels, rangers gain abilities that increase the effectiveness of their attacks and the coordinated use of their companions. By tactically applying the synergistic benefits of the ranger and his or her companion, players can lock down and quickly overwhelm powerful enemies. Defensive Bond - When both the ranger and his or her animal companion are subjected to an area effect attack, they gain +15 to the targeted defenses. Marked Prey (Active) - The ranger can designate a single target as his or her marked prey. He or she and his or her animal companion have a damage bonus against that target until combat ends. Once designated, the target cannot be switched. 1/encounter. Predator's Sense - The ranger's animal companion gains a damage bonus on any creature suffering from a continuous damage effect, including those caused by Wounding Shots. Stalkers' Link - When a ranger's animal companion Engages a target, the target is automatically Flanked if the ranger has a ranged weapon equipped and is opposite the target. Takedown (Active) - The ranger's animal companion will knock the target Prone with a Fortitude attack. 2/encounter. Defensive Shooting - When using ranged weapons against any target that is Engaging the ranger, the ranger's Accuracy is increased by 20 and his or her Interrupt rating is improved by one category. Master's Call (Active) - When the ranger issues Master's Call, his or her animal companion will immediately move back to him or her at increased speed, gaining a +20 bonus to Concentration and defenses against Disengagement Attacks. Any enemy it comes within 1m of is automatically attacked (Fortitude) and knocked Prone if the attack succeeds. 2/rest. In addition to the abilities listed here, ciphers, rogues, and rangers can gain access to additional class-specific abilities as well as Talents. Some Talents can be taken by any character, but many are class-oriented and can be used to distinguish or emphasize one character from another. One cipher's Talents may emphasize his or her physical attacks while another's makes his or her Focus use more efficient. One rogue may maximize his or her advantage against a specific type of affliction; another may improve the frequency with which his or her offensive abilities can be used. And while rangers can always benefit from improving their marksmanship and special attacks, investing in the durability and abilities of their animal companions can safeguard the ranger against disaster. Pillars of Eternity's heavy hitters all differ in how they bring the pain to enemies, but we hope you enjoy the concepts and mechanics we've presented here. As always, these are our current designs and implementations, but will be adjusting them in the months to come. We will be doing three more class pair updates in the future: The Leaders of the Band (chanters and priests), The Front Line (fighters and barbarians), and The Mob Rulers (wizards and druids). Let us know what you think of today's update and please vote on which of the three class pairs you'd like to see covered next. As always, thanks for reading and for your continued support.

First of all, the Project Eternity wiki source for Modes. In a discussion on Xenonauts forums (great game by the way, it's still Early Access but I recommend it to anyone who enjoys tactical turn-based games) I'm discussing an Ironman suggestion and what it means to me. No one agrees with me over there lol, partially because I'm probably intruding on their established community circle regardless... it made me curious to see what people stand on the subject of "Ironman" over here. What is Ironman to you? To me, in fact I didn't really know what Ironman really was up until 7 or 8 months ago. I had seen it but I had stayed away from it, or played it and not fully understanding it. I researched it and got excited about it and now I always play it whenever the option is available. Only 1 Save, Permanent Death, Save File gets deleted and so and so forth. In a sense, in terms of risks, it is the most realistic mode as there is no "turning back" when or if you make a mistake, in a way a la "in real life you can't ever save". To me Ironman means this: - No Auto-Saves (No Checkpoint Saves) - Only Save & Quit (Single Save File) - When you load the game, the Save File is Deleted - Save Scumming = If you Copy the Saved File and put it somewhere safe - Only 1 Life (If you make mistakes you tread on and do the best out of it), Rogue-like-ish - A true incentive for tactical, careful, strategical and slower paced gameplay because of real risks - Arcade-like-ish (Get to the final boss, die, start over from the beginning) What ticks me off about Xenonauts Ironman is, it is not the Ironman I researched or that I have experienced in other games. Death of my units is not permanent because I have a save file from an earlier state. It Auto-Saves after every mission you do, and you can Load the Save file whenever (And when you Load it, it isn't deleted). So Xenonauts is using a sort of "Light Version" of Ironman in my opinion. It is not too much of a big deal really, as I can manually delete save files (alt+tab and save file folder) to get the real Ironman experience I am looking for. The topic makes me curious though: Is this what "Ironman" is today? Auto-Saveman? How will Eternity play on Ironman? Will it Auto-Save every now and then like Xenonauts? Does Save Files get deleted when loading? When can I Save? Could I get more insight into this from anyone of the Devs? I'm also curious what the community thinks about Ironman here. The suggestion is as follows: If Obsidian feels uncomfortable at putting "No Auto-Saves", "Save & Quit" and "Delete Save File Loading" in the game, could it be possible to at least add it as an optional "switch" thing in a text config file? Default values (if Obsidian feels uncomfortable about it, which the Xenonauts developers seem to be): Auto-Saves = 1 Save & Quit = 0 Delete Save when Loading = 0 Ironman values (to me, which would have to be manually adjusted by opening the config file): Auto-Saves = 0 Save & Quit = 1 Delete Save when Loading = 1

It would be great if someone could shed some light on how Obsidian plans to incorporate this aspect in the game. I always roll a thief/assassin character in cRPGs and I am curious how it will turn out to be in PE. IMHO, BG2 had a very satisfying feel for the assassin - picking the right tools, items and skills, you could one-shot very hard foes before they got a chance to react. After that, you were kind of useless unless you had invisibility potions or items to do another stab, or it was running in the fog to re-stealth. The principle was very good and mostly satisfying but there were some pitfalls PE could learn from - first off, the one that most developers fail at - backstabing being based on weapon base damage / all weapons are equally good at stabbing. This must be avoided as a Staff of the Ram with huge base damage is an optimal backstabbing weapon no matter what. Instead, there should be a hefty bonus for daggers/short swords to make them the ideal weapon for such things. Dual-wielding should also amplify the backstabbing capabilities but should also have drawbacks compared to one-hand attacks. That said, a mace/sword rogue should definitely be a viable path and could have more consistent damage during combat as opposed to daggers that do a big initial burst but then perform worse as the clash stretches out. Another very important part is stealth and the mechanics surrounding it. I believe it's a consensus that the visual/audio hiding/checking should be merged into one, as no one would max one and leave the other low because that would still make sneaking impossible. Trying to go into stealth and "failing" was also mind boggling during the stages where your sneaking wasn't that good, requiring you to just sit there a couple of turns until you finally enter successful, so I think every attempt should be successful, it's just that lower levels would require you to be slower and more prone to detection. Visual cones is something that should definitely affect sneaking, as should walls and items that block vision (like in BG2). It shouldn't be too complicated though, a simple flat detection bonus should be applied if you are sneaking in front of someone as opposed to being behind them. Naturally, distance would factor in a lot as well. Anyway, I'll add more thoughts tomorrow, but feel free to add in or comment

Hello, friends. The elves have been hard at work on Project Eternity, and we would like to show you our fine goods. This is a long update, but we wanted to give you more information than usual since it's the end of the year and we will be in our elfhomes for the next few weeks. First, I'd like to talk about what we've been doing with the engine and second, I'd like to talk about some of the design work we've been doing. Resolution and Scaling - We want to run the game at various resolutions and scale properly. We've been talking about our target resolutions and looking at the best way to implement scaling. If you've played any of the Infinity Engine games lately, you may have noticed that running at high resolutions can make the game look like an RTS. Though it's nice to be able to scale up and see more of the environment, at a certain point dungeons start looking like ant farms. That's what happens when you take a game designed for 640x480 and run it at more than double the resolution. It is now the year 2012, so we're looking at supporting a range of resolutions that runs from modest laptops to Macs with crazy Retina displays. To do this, we're going to render the game out at a target high resolution and a target low resolution. Currently, we're looking at a base resolution of 1280x720. A large number of laptops run at this resolution or its slightly bigger brother, 1366x768. It's not quite twice the resolution of the original games (640x480) due to the 16:9 aspect ratio, but pretty close. We believe that this base resolution will scale well up to 1920x1080, which would be roughly equivalent to going from 640x480 to 1024x768. In the old IE games, this gave you a slightly larger view of the world, but didn't get too crazy. For our higher resolution, we are likely going to render out to a ~2560x1440 screen size, as we did with our environment during the Kickstarter campaign. We will likely downsample these to run at 1920x1080. With resolutions above "mere" Retina displays, we will zoom out, which should allow the backgrounds to scale into outer space (close enough, anyway). Movement and Combat Feel - We've been working on implementing all of the basics of party selection, movement, and combat. This includes working on personal space, ally and enemy pathing, friendly "bumping" during movement, ranges of melee attacks, attack timing and delays, target selection, and response time. A lot of work goes into making these elements feel good and feel "IE-ish" (while excluding the IE-ish things we didn't like). We’ve also been building block-in weapon meshes and putting them in the game to see how they look in terms of scale. This has gone well, but we're still working on proportions. Some thin weapons, like stilettos, rapiers, and estocs, can be very difficult to discern, especially at lower resolutions. Their thicker cousins, daggers, swords, and greatswords, need to be "beefed up" a small amount to help distinguish them. Even though we need to make a few slight adjustments, our overall approach of making weapons with realistic... ish proportions is working well and feels similar to the characters and weapons found in Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. Along with implementing the visuals of the weapons, we're experimenting with weapon statistics and mechanics. Weapons are currently classified as slashing, piercing, or crushing, which is a pretty common division of types. We're not currently using damage types vs. armor types in Project Eternity, but the damage types all have properties that suggest a certain type of usage. Slashing weapons do the most damage when compared to their counterparts from other categories. E.g., if you compare a greatsword to an estoc to a maul, the greatsword does the most damage. When targets have little to no armor, slashing weapons are the ideal choice. Piercing weapons negate a fixed amount of Damage Threshold, which is the primary way in which armor reduces damage. Though they don't do as much damage as slashing or crushing weapons, their ability to ignore even moderately heavy armor means that it is superior to other weapons in those circumstances. While armor can negate a large amount of damage, there's always a small amount that gets through. Crushing weapons do much more through armor, which makes them the best choice when dealing with very heavily armored targets. So far, this works well on paper, scales well, and seems to hold up in the game, but it is very "mathy" and not necessarily intuitive because you can't always guess a target's Damage Threshold simply by looking at them (as opposed to armor types, which are usually visually apparent). We will continue to experiment with this to see how it feels in the long run. Our goals are to provide tactical challenges to the player and give them to feedback and tools to adapt and overcome when they're in a difficult spot. UI Design - Tim and I have been talking about our user interfaces recently. We want to make sure that we improve the functionality of the original designs without completely losing the feeling of those interfaces. One thing we want to avoid is making the UI too "minimalist". We don't want it to feel bloated, of course, but we also recognize that the IE games had "solid" interfaces. They looked like they were made of materials -- wood, stone, and metal -- and had substance to them. When you look at the interfaces for the IE games, they help immerse you in each setting. We'd like to do the same for Project Eternity. Functionally, we're using Icewind Dale II as our starting point. We've been looking at inventory recently. Tim and I have designed a system that uses three types of gear storage: equipment, top of pack (this name may change!), and stash. Equipment is what your characters are currently using and have ready to use. This includes weapon sets that you can swap between during combat. "Top of pack" is a finite amount of gear that you can access outside of combat for a variety of purposes: replenishing consumables, checking out a shiny new sword you picked up a while back, etc. The top of pack cannot be accessed during combat, but is present as a strategic pool of items that you can access while exploring. The stash is where all of the "other stuff" goes: things you aren't using, items you want to sell, and various doo-dads you'll be looking at later. When you find gear, you have the option of placing it wherever you'd like as long as there's room for it. You can use it immediately, put it in your top of pack, or just chuck it in the stash. Once an object is in the stash, you can access it at camps, your home, and similar locations. We've created this division of inventory space to add strategy to your gear loadout decisions instead of having a weight limit, while also allowing flexibility for backup equipment. Most importantly, it doesn't prevent you from doing what adventurers love to do most: loot everything they find that isn't bolted down. Core Four Class Design and Advancement - We want our classes to feel familiar but flexible, so we've designed our "core four" (fighter, priest, rogue, wizard) to reflect traditional D&D roles and allow you to build outside of them. In our current design, each of the classes starts with two active use or modal abilities and one passive bonus. Fighter Defender (Mode) - In the Defender mode, fighters' melee attack rates decrease while their melee defenses increase. This is a particularly useful mode to enter when a fighter is blocking a route of attack to protect other party members. Surge - This active ability allows fighters to rapidly regenerate Stamina for a short period of time. Melee Accuracy - Fighters have inherent skill with melee weapons that is reflected by a small accuracy bonus. Priest 1st Level Priest Spells - Priests gain access to all 1st level priest spells. Priests can cast a fixed number of 1st level spells before they must rest to recover their uses. They can cast any combination of different spells up to the per-rest limit. As priests gain levels, their 1st level spells will eventually become per-encounter resources. Recovery - The Recovery ability regenerates a modest amount of Stamina for allies (including the priest, if in range) in a Medium-sized area at Short range. Sacred Circle - All allies standing within a Small area around the priest gain Accuracy bonus. This bonus does not include the priest unless there are no conscious allies in range, in which case it applies to the priest. Rogue Escape - The rogue may hop a short distance away and all hostiles lose him or her as a direct target for 3 seconds. After the 3 seconds are up, enemies can target the rogue normally. Reversal - Reversal prepares the rogue for the next melee attack against him or her. When it hits, the rogue takes reduced damage and instantly rolls to the opposite side of the target and executes a powerful melee attack. This will even allow rogues to move past enemies that are fully blocking a path. Sneak Attack - This damage bonus applies whenever the rogue "flanks" an enemy or when the rogue is hidden from an enemy. Flanking means that the rogue is within a short distance of the target and on the "opposite" side of that enemy from an adjacent ally. Wizard 1st Level Wizard Spells - Wizards can access all 1st level wizard spells immediately. Unlike other wizard spell levels, the wizard does not need to find scrolls or grimoires to use any 1st level spells. Wizards can cast a fixed number of 1st level spells before they must rest to recover their uses. They can cast any combination of different spells up to the per-rest limit. As wizards gain levels, their 1st level spells will eventually become per-encounter resources. Blast - When wizards use any implement (i.e. a wand, rod, or scepter), they generate a Blast on the target. The Blast does a modest amount of damage to all enemies in a Small area around the target (excluding the target). Familiar - All wizards can summon and dismiss familiars. Familiars are mobile "totems" for the wizard, providing defensive bonuses to allies near them and inflicting defensive penalties to enemies near them. Players can also access the master's spell list through the familiar, though casting a spell through the familiar still requires the master to physically cast it; it's simply targeted from the familiar. Familiars are weak and fragile. If a familiar is killed, the wizard takes damage and is unable to summon his or her familiar until he or she rests again. As players advance their characters, they have the ability to choose class-specific abilities and more class-neutral talents (more like perks or feats) to customize their character capabilities. If you want to keep your fighters very low maintenance, there are a large number of passive fighter abilities and combat-oriented talents that you can buy. If you'd like to make a fighter that's much more "active-use" (more like a 4E fighter), you can choose to buy more modal and active abilities. Similarly, while all wizards gain additional spells, you can use talents to boost a wizard's damage with implement weapons and Blasts, making them more useful when you're not having them chain-cast a series of limited-use spells. The same also applies to skills, which are used for a variety of non-combat purposes. All classes start out with bonuses in the skills that their classes most commonly use, but players can choose to reinforce or play against that top. If you want to make a paladin who delights in picking locks, you can do that and get a lot of utility out of the skill -- though the character will never be quite as good as a rogue who specializes in it. We hope that these approaches use the strengths of a "role-ready" class system while allowing players a large amount of helpful flexibility in how they develop characters over a (hopefully) long and fruitful adventuring career. That's all for this week, and this year! We'll be back in January with more details on what we're up to and where we're going in the months to come. Thanks for reading! Update from Josh Sawyer

Have lots to say about this but leaving space. In my opinion Rogues should be the best at disarming traps, but if I don't want a Rogue in my party, could there be items or other ways to overcome traps? Could a Fighter or Barbarian be able to stop that boulder rolling towards the party by physically stopping it? Can 2 melee Strength-based characters be able to open doors at the cost of stamina? (Holding up a closing stone door Indiana Jones style~). Could there be some sort of experimental equipment that nullifies poison traps? (gasmask thing, making you able to just walk over Gas traps like it was nothing). What kind of traps will exist in P:E and what kind of mechanics will be used to deactivate traps? Will we see more of a Grimrock style? Pitfalls? Spikes? Arrow shooting traps? Or will it be more in-tune with BG with no "buttons" or similar? Player vs Dungeon. Not really "What enemies are there?" but "What obstacles block the way forward?".