Devoted: Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff

[Yosharian]

20 hours ago, dunehunter said:

Forget you are on turn-based mode, sorry i have no insight on that mode, always play in RTWP  An my conclusion is only valid if u can fully penetrate as I said.

If it provides any insight, I think pretty much the two main differences are that 1) attack speed becomes almost worthless, because you can only attack once per round no matter what, and 2) dual wielding is quite strong because any basic attack action you perform attacks with both weapons.

I suspect this means that dual-wielding is quite strong in this mode, but I'm not sure.

[omgFIREBALLS]

Wait, really? Why would anyone take dexterity then? Reflex save and dialogue checks? ^^

[Boeroer]

Action and recovery speed translate to initiative in TB mode. So with more DEX etc. you will be further up and can act sooner (but not more often).

[omgFIREBALLS]

Yeah, I figured as much, but considering the massive attack rate differences you can get outside TB, that sounds really harsh. High dexterity dagger user wearing light armor vs. a low dexterity tincan swinging a modaled war hammer, mace, sabre, battle axe or quarterstaff. One attack each! Spend it wisely, for example by not being the dagger user.

Oh well, TB didn't interest me to begin with, but even less now ^^

[Boeroer]

We will see some changes to TB pretty soon. Let's see what they come up with.

[Yosharian]

3 hours ago, omgFIREBALLS said:

Wait, really? Why would anyone take dexterity then? Reflex save and dialogue checks? ^^

Exactly.  Dex and Action Speed are almost worthless in this mode.

With a caster, it can be of some value to go earlier and be able to throw out spells earlier in the turn.  But, I don't think it's worth it, compared to being really tanky.

All my characters are wearing high armor (mostly plate) and have low-ish dexterity.  I'm having tons of fun.

[Boeroer]

Atm speed vs. sturdyness is not balanced properly. I wonder if TB mode will see additional attacks per round if you overcome certain speed thresholds.

[Elric Galad]

28 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Atm speed vs. sturdyness is not balanced properly. I wonder if TB mode will see additional attacks per round if you overcome certain speed thresholds.

Thresholds are heresy.
We need a Leaden Key to seal these abominations from the D&D realms from where they should never have escaped.

We had this marvellous game cleansed of all thresholds, not requiring these infamous "threshold tables" for minmaxing.
And TB is suddenly reintroducing all this, threatening the balance of all things.

We should pray Lord Josh from an ATB system, this is our last hope now.
(or simply forget about this TB system since it's free content anyway) 

[Boeroer]

We have several thresholds in Deadfire. Maybe the meaning ofthe word "threshold" is not clear?

Currently there are:

• Wounds (Monk)
• Penetration
• Focus
• Unharmed/Healthy/Bloodied/Near Death
• Injuries/Death

and certainly more mechanics that use thresholds one way or the other.

Gaining additional attacks with a dagger if your attack speed + recovery fall under a certain value (e.g. 2 seconds while one turn is supposed to simulate 4 seconds) is reasonable and would make a lot of sense in order to balance the weapons and armor setups with each other.

If this isn't granular enough you can always allow more actions per round in general. If you can for example cast one 9-sec-spell in one turn you should be able to strike thrice with a 3-sec-weapon, shouldn't you?

I wonder why they didn't use "action points" per turn to determine the number of actions a character can perform (ability use, moving etc.). Costs of actions could have been derived from action speed/recovery just nicely I think?  

[Yosharian]

If action speed determined the number of actions per turn, almost every character would require max Dexterity and as much Action Speed as possible.  In other words, exactly like the RTWP system.  It's boring.  At least this system does something to upset the 'Action Speed Is King' dynamic.

[Boeroer]

That would highly depend on the implementation. For example you could simply say that you only get additional attacks if you overcome certain high thresholds and start with several weapon attacks per round right from the start. So that for example normal one handers and two handers do 2 attacks, light weapons do 3, dual wielding adds one additional attack. Attack speed bonuses wouldn't grant additional attacks unless you are the guy with the highest initiative who gets one additional attack.
Quite balanced and no race for attack speed bonuses (excapt for one character who might want to stack it to be the first one all the time).

 

I would say that it's even more boring that daggers attack as slowly as great swords and summoning phantoms takes as long as punching someone. 

Edited April 30, 2019 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

8 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

We have several thresholds in Deadfire. Maybe the meaning ofthe word "threshold" is not clear?

Currently there are:

• Wounds (Monk)
• Penetration
• Focus
• Unharmed/Healthy/Bloodied/Near Death
• Injuries/Death

and certainly more mechanics that use thresholds one way or the other.

Indeed, but not something as critical as doubling attack power when you have 18 Dex or a duration increased 2->3rd when having 23 Int, especially when the whole Attack speed system has been designed for continuous increase. 

Penetration is the big exception, but it depends on foes so a specific character build usefulness would be an average of performances against them.

Still ATB or action points would have been better

I'm too concerned about balance to be interested in TB at the moment. Still, it is an additional mode which can draw new audience to PoE, so why not.

[MaxQuest]

4 hours ago, Yosharian said:

If action speed determined the number of actions per turn, almost every character would require max Dexterity and as much Action Speed as possible.  In other words, exactly like the RTWP system.  It's boring.  At least this system does something to upset the 'Action Speed Is King' dynamic.

It depends how it is implemented. 
For example at the moment there is one full action per turn right?
Going from 1 action to 1.3 action at 20 DEX,.. how would this even work?

On the other hand there could be no "hard turns" but rather "milestone turns" with ability to move along the order queue (like in HOMM). So think of something like: 6s RTwP = 1 TB milestone ~= 100 milestone points, e.g:

- when you cast a 6s/2s cast/recovery spell at 10 DEX, it will consume 100 + 33 milestone points
- when you cast a 6s/2s cast/recovery spell at 20 DEX, it will consume 77 + 25 milestone points
and so on

Now imagine: it's your warlock's turn and you issue him to cast a 3s/4s spell.
Because he has 20 DEX, 3s/4s would be 2.3s/3.0s; or 38/51 milestone points.
So the warlock is now shown in "casting animation", and there are two entries in the order queue:
- passive turn @ 38 milestone points (i.e. when the spell goes off, unless interrupted)
- active turn @ 89 milestone points (i.e. when the player will be able to issue to warlock a new command)
* additionally during the passive turn, the game recalculates the recovery duration. For example if the spell triggered Blood Thirst: recovery gets waived, and the active turn gets dragged to current position in the queue, and you can issue a new command right away.

P.S. Heh. After writing this down, have realized that this is almost RTwP, but just with auto-pause for action issuing, and a visual order queue.

[masterty66]

Well one problem I could see is actually getting the staff. Nemnok's area is pretty tough and I dunno what the earliest level is you could comfortably do it. Level 12-15ish maybe? 

[omgFIREBALLS]

At level 11 (PotD + scale all + upscale only, but no other twists) I killed Bipara, walked into the Drowned Barrows, killed the welcome party and went straight into Nemnok's lair. I already had a wardstone from the desert island with Dorudugan on it. Talked my way to the grimoire quest and ka-ching, staff be mine.

It's possible I could have done it at an even lower level, however I won't contest that Magran's Favor probably wouldn't be easier to get.

[brasilgringo]

I vaguely remember their being a monk/fighter build a while back (in the builds list) that relied on Chromoprismatic and DoC and Helm of the Falcon.....

[Yosharian]

6 hours ago, omgFIREBALLS said:

At level 11 (PotD + scale all + upscale only, but no other twists) I killed Bipara, walked into the Drowned Barrows, killed the welcome party and went straight into Nemnok's lair. I already had a wardstone from the desert island with Dorudugan on it. Talked my way to the grimoire quest and ka-ching, staff be mine.

It's possible I could have done it at an even lower level, however I won't contest that Magran's Favor probably wouldn't be easier to get.

Could I bother you to detail exactly the steps needed to get the staff with minimal effort?  I have no idea who Bipara is, where the Drowned Barrows are, who Nemnok is, what the wardstone from Dorudugan's island does, what the grimoire quest is, etc

[omgFIREBALLS]

Certainly! The staff is in the treasury of Nemnok, whose home is the Drowned Barrows. This is one of the three high level dungeons of the base Deadfire, and lies on an island to the northwest. The dungeon is a small mountain shaped like a skull, and after entering through the mouth and fighting the initial party, you can proceed directly forward to a room riddled with traps and two Sigils of Mortality (I think that's the name). If you can get through this room, you can get to Nemnok.

It might be possible to simply destroy the sigils from a safe distance, but likely not with piercing or slashing damage (and you can't run in with your staff), so you'll need some magic tricks up your sleeve. If you try to run past the sigils, you will assuredly die, and I mean four-injuries-consigned-to-the-Wheel-deleted-from-the-party die.

Read spoiler if simply destroying them doesn't work; it was getting too lengthy to talk this much about them, and I'm 90% sure they can be destroyed:
 

Spoiler

 

You'll need a wardstone that makes your party immune to their effects. Such a wardstone can be acquired elsewhere in the Drowned Barrows, or from the Sandswept Ruins dungeon on the southwesternmost island of the world map. This dungeon actually doesn't have a single monster, but approximately I-****-you-not fifty traps, one of them far more sophisticated than just waiting around to be disarmed through a mechanics check.

You can find a switch that opens a passage, at the end of which are four Sigils of Mortality surrounding a corpse. I know for a fact these can be killed, but again, not with slashing or piercing damage and you can't get close enough with a staff. Behind them is another switch which will disable all traps and puzzles in the dungeon, but you need 20+ perception to see it. Having done this, run to the little ceremonial chamber and loot the hammer and skull off the altar and pry the wardstone out of the skull. Note that if you didn't find and flick the switch, you'll need to pass a simple puzzle to remove the fire from around the altar and a scripted interaction to avoid being buried in sand after looting it.

Or you can just head east from the entrance of the Drowned Barrows, fight your way through a bunch of naga, then continue northwest to a pack of eoten guarding such a wardstone, but hey, I said high level dungeon, yes?

When meeting Nemnok, you can avoid combat by saying the right things. I can't recall for sure, but I don't think you need to pass any skill check. Instead, this lets you work for him. He is a tough encounter, so you probably don't want to fight him if you intend to get the staff at as low a level as possible. Also, it's pretty entertaining to work for him.

He'll ask you to get him three grimoires. For each grimoire you acquire for him, he will let you loot one chest in his treasury. You can choose between the staff, a bow and a shield.

The grimoires are dropped by:
* Bipara, in the Outcast's Respite, on the northwesternmost island of Deadfire and directly west of Nemnok's island
* A lich (fighter/wizard) in a Flooded Cave, far east in the Deadfire
* Menzzago, ruling the Splintered Reef (another high level dungeon) to the southeast in the Deadfire

Menzzago's is probably going to be the toughest to get. The lich might be comparable to Bipara, might even be easier if you manage to take out his minions without aggroing him. Not sure that you don't need to pass some nasty skill checks to get to his cave though.

Also, if you have a wizard in your party you might want to check out this grimoires in advance so you don't work on getting him one you'd rather keep for yourself. They are actual equippable grimoires, not inert quest items. You always have the option to "simply" kill him if you want his loot without getting him books. I don't play wizards so I cannot speak for how attractive these three are, but they're certainly not the only ones in the category "high level grimoires".

Lastly I'd like to mention that in the northern Deadfire there's an island with a dungeon called Kohopa's Fang, incidentally where you can get Magran's Favor (mythic legendary battle axe). Elsewhere on this island is an encounter with some eoten. Aside from being a decent test for your party's combat ability, after defeating them you can loot a superb quarterstaff (Street Sweeper) which could be your weapon until you get the chromostaff. Just be aware that you (the player, not the Watcher, not the party :P) need to look for it in the sand to find it - just look for something broom-shaped. You can't return to the area, so if you don't loot it you never will.

Edited May 1, 2019 by omgFIREBALLS

[Yosharian]

Wow man thanks for the info.  I believe Magran's Favor is Legendary, not Mythic?  Is that wrong?

[omgFIREBALLS]

Oh yes, sorry, my silly mind thought legendary was the highest enchantment level when I posted that. Nothing is mythic by default IIRC.

[Boeroer]

Ah-ah-ah! My beard is mythic by default.

[omgFIREBALLS]

So it has +5 penetration? Is it beard or densely packed barbed wire?

[Boeroer]

Well, basically at some point it transcended its former legendary status. What mythic entails depends on the item. If my beard were a weapon it would have +5 PEN.
But: is it a weapon? Is it armor? Or is it even... Super Grover???

Edited May 1, 2019 by Boeroer
missed a "v" - imagine the TV show "V" without the v. Now that would be veird...

[AeonsLegend]

On 4/23/2019 at 2:20 PM, MaxQuest said:

Yeap, noticed that too. Encounter designers seem to favor crush damage type.

 

And perhaps that is why there is no 13-19 one-handed crush weapon?)

Or perhaps because blunt weapons are the only thing that can harm a heavily armored person in real life. In real life a sword and dagger are completely and utterly useless vs anyone in plate armor especially if they're wielding a long reach weapon. No one in their right mind would actually use a dagger in actual combat, that only happens in fantasy games where "rogues" are a thing. That stuff never existed in the real world.

[Boeroer]

 

49 minutes ago, AeonsLegend said:

That stuff never existed in the real world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rondel_dagger