Hello community,

So I'm looking to start up a new playthrough that will hopefully take me through the entirety of Pillars of Eternity, White March I & II, and then after all of that, push me through to Pillars of Eternity Deadfire. I've easily clocked in countless hours into the game goofing around with a variety of different builds but I haven't really committed to a "marathon" build to do EVERYTHING with. I know this is fairly subjective but was curious what the rest of the community, you all, did to decide on a character concept to carry through such a play through.

Typically for myself I like to focus on Lore-heavy builds, and for this I don't plan on doing anything heavy handed as far as difficulty. What has worked for you all when making up a character for such playthroughs for those who have done it?

Cheers!

Hi!

I like to have a character that has a thematic and also a class consistency throughout both games.

For example in PoE1 I would pick a Nature Godlike Monk with druidic vibes, give him the cross class talent Aspirant's Mark, pick up (and level up) the Greenstone Staff and use several items with Druid spells (spell binding items) such as Rotfinger Gloves for example. And maybe some fitting scrolls, too.

In Deadfire I then build a Nature Godlike Helwalker/Ancient and continued the journey with the Spine of Thicket Green (quarterstaff) and so on.

Or I would use a Chanter in PoE 1 with Sure Handed Ila and Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr, pick up One-Eyed Molina's Spike Flinger (soulbound arbalest) and Runner's Wounding Shot as cross class talent - and then in Deadfire I build a Troubadour/Arcane Archer with Spearcaster (also arbalest). I wrote a build description for that one because it turned out to be very effective and fun to play:

Chanter with focus on invocations, using short phrases to get phrase points quickly and using the cross class talent Enigma's Charm and several charm/dominate items (Munacra Arret, Spirit Spiral, Ring of Changing Heart) in PoE -> turn into a Troubadour/Psion in Deadfire:

Also playing as a plain Priest of Eothas over both games was enjoyable. In PoE there's quite some fitting unique gear for a Priest (of generally a follower) of Eothas: unique flail, unique helmet, unique mail armor and so on - which is kind of rewarding. Priest of Eothas also fits both games' themes and storylines well. Sometimes it's a bit weird that the game doesn't react/recognize this class choice more though.

Priest of Berath with Tidefall in PoE -> Priest of Berath/Helwalker with the summoned Spiritual Great Sword.

My most beloved Monk build from PoE (Witch Doctor) who used the Long Pain primary (so a ranged Monk) turned into the Mortar Monk in Desdfire.

But some builds that I have enjoyed playing very much in one of the games don't work well (or were not much fun to play for me) in the other. For example the combo Helwaker/Berserker with a Morning Star is one of my favorite builds in Deadfire, but when I went back to PoE and wanted to do a whole playthrough from PoE to Deadfire with this build in mind I couldn't make it work in PoE. I mean a PoE Monk with a Morning Star and Outlander's Frenzy would work for sure, but there's not too much synergy, some stuff just suppresses each other (like Swift Strikes and Outlander's Frenzy) and it wasn't much fun to play. The other way round - Barbarian with Monk features - doesn't really work because the cross class talent Novice's Suffering is kind of useless of you plan to use a Morning Star.

Sometimes it needs a bit of playtesting to be sure it holds up in both games.

Cheers to you, too. :)

Edited 3 hours ago3 hr by Boeroer