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Throughout history the use of a spear and a shield was one of the most used weapon combinations. It was not only cheap, but also higly efficient. If it wasn't, then it wouldn't have been used for thousands of years. Despite all that, the majority of computer games and Table Top RPGs that includes both shields and spears in the game, they always put in some stupid restriction or limitation that prevents this use of History's favourite. This might be quite niche, but I would very much like it if Project Eternity is the first cRPG where I can fully employ this time honored fighting tradition to one of the characters.

I've been enjoying my first play-through through PoE II but I've just realized (after a number of hours) that my main character is slightly bugged. I decided to choose a Devoted Fighter but didn't comprehend the fact that I'd only be able to choose one weapon proficiency for the rest of the game. I ended up choosing a shield as my proficiency, hoping to go back at a later level and choose a weapon that I could use, but have only recently realized that I won't be getting that chance. My main character is now essentially playing with all of the disadvantages of the Devoted subclass, but none of the advantages since the Shield obviously doesn't get the weapon advantages from the class. I could start using unarmed attacks (since they count towards the Devoted proficiency bonus) but that's not really my play style and I'd prefer to use an actual weapon. I understand wanting to make class picks to be permanent but I wish there was a way for me to re-pick my devoted proficiency or possibly even choose a new sub-class through an ingame retraining system. I don't really want to restart now (after putting many hours in) just to change my character's proficiency so, unless I'm missing something, I'm basically stuck with my nerfed character. Any ideas on how to circumvent this?

Hi Josh & Aarik, thanks a lot for answering those questions and feeding us with infos. One thing though: looking through the said video I noticed how you guys answered a question about bashing shields: You answered something like that it's not supposed to be a big dps boost. One should use dual wieldung or two handers for that. A shield is suppoed to give you deflection and not dps. So far, so good, but I think you misunderstood: The thing is that bashing shields reduce the dps compared to normal shields! It seems you don't know about that (which is understandable). Bashing doesn't speed up your attacks - so instead of hitting things with your good and sharp sword every 2 seconds, you will alternate between sword's good damage and the low damage of bashing. You will do less dps than a guy who uses a regular shield! Let me put it this way: If you wield sword & shield and attack 10 times with that sword - it does 10 damage - you will do 100 damage in total, right? Now if you attack 5 times with the same sword and 5 times with a shield bash that does 3 damage, you will only do 65 damage (I made the numbers up to make it plain). In the same amount of time (because unlike dual wielding, using a bashing shield doesn't speed up your attacks) you will do less damage compared to a normal shield guy. The worst thing about this is that bashing also costs you enchantment slots. You basically pay for a dps loss. Bashing must at least cause the same amount of damage as your main weapon if you don't want to produce a dps loss compared to normal shields. This is difficult to achieve and also not very logical. So another way to upvalue bashing would be a stun- or prone-on-crit effect, a small push effect on hit/crit, disorienting on hit (basically like some unique weapons have), dazing or whatever comes to mind which would make bashing useful and not a gimpage. One could also think of an active ability like Knockdown like the Girdle of the Driving Wave has: Knockdown 1/encounter. All those stuff would be plausible and not hard to implement. Some of the PoE1 shields had things like that (or even way better), like Badgradr's Barricade or Dragon's Maw. The other bash shields would have been better if there weren't bashing on them at all. I hope you understand what I mean. Now you surely agree that something has to be done. It wasn't my question by the way. But a good one I think.

According to this (https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83326-twm-203-two-weapon-fighting-doesnt-work-with-bash/) post, two weapon fighting talent not working with shield bash was considered a bug, not as dev intended. I just skimmed through patch notes in the developer blog (actually used search function ) and found out shield bash not generating focus and not proccing carnage have been fixed, but two weapon fighting talent and shield bash is not mentioned anywhere in patch notes. To confirm this, I tested with most recent version of the game and it looks two weapon fighting talent doesn't work with shield bash, indeed. I'd like a clarification on this matter, is this working as intended, and not a bug?

Has anybody noticed that when equipping a medium or large shield it appears to calculate the deflection bonus correctly but applies a larger than described accuracy penalty. Ex. (My Eder clone equips a battleaxe and his accuracy is 54; but when he adds a medium shield his accuracy drops to 38) Based on the shield description shouldn't it only drop 4 points?

The shield is supposed to only affect melee attacks, and probably only enemy attacks as well. 1. have a party member equip Sura's Copper Plate 2. cast any of cipher's abilities on said party member 3. cipher receives dmg As far as I know it's only affecting cipher's abilities atm. It's quite annoying because Pain Block is a really good buf that provides DR but it kills my Griveous Mother... See the combat log(i casted blindstrike because you can't cast party buffs ooc) you see that after the first miss eder retaliates. I assume the retaliation uses the main weapon as Eder has a stilleto equipped.

A problem i find in the occasional modern rpg is that unique items are often too easy to find and are often done so by either random drops or in a chest on your way to a greater goal. Another traditional method of acquiring them is through boss fights. Yes ok, fighting a particularly powerful foe should yield its rewards, but for those items, these legendary artifacts that have changed the course of that games history, they should be secretive, they should not be found simply as a drop to a boss you had to kill anyway. Dragon Age has the same problem, some of the most powerful items there are found simply on your way to another objective, in obvious shining containers. What is the gratification in finding a beautifully crafted weapon, giving you an edge in combat simply as a prize for not being completely blind? Skyrim had a good idea with locations of certain artifacts hidden in books. The problem was that it marked the location of the item on your map the moment you picked up the book and left nothing to chance, the book itself was also commonly found. Playing Fable, i recall the most powerful sword required a certain alignment for the tomb that contained it to open, another was a sword-in-the-stone type where you could see men from the local village trying their strength attempting to pull it out, not to mention certain chests that required a particular amount of keys found throughout the world. That is what i would like to see, that there is some challenge involved in finding an artifact of significant power, be it trough optional side quests , cryptic requirements or deducing their location through obscure data. If you absolutely cant find it and still want it, ask google. PS: I make a distinction between unique and legendary items. Legendaries are certainly unique but are distinct through power and historical relevance.