No immunities

[Namutree]

I remember back in BG 1 and 2 that trolls can only be killed with fire or acid weapons/spells.

Death spells worked too IIRC.

[Luckmann]

Oh Right, I forgot all about that. You dislike immunities because you don't want to have to think when making party builds. You don't want to be held responsible for your choices. You don't want to play a game that challenges you to adapt. You don't understand the point of party based tactical combat.

 

But I digress. The lack of immunities goes even deeper than its gameplay coddling for the casuals. It ruins the integrity of the game world. How are we supposed to take a game or its lore seriously when it doesn't take itself seriously? When it gives us Flying creatures that can slip and fall on slickened ground they're not touching? Or when it calls something Undead and then gives it living emotions like fear?

 

Obsidian dropped the ball on this one and we all know it. That's why we see people here reduced to making up the most ridiculous of desperate excuses that they themselves don't really buy. "You're blinding their souls!", "You're not knocking down that Ooze, you're knocking down its insides.... or something", "You can put out a fire by making it hotter... really, I've done it!"

I really need no other post on this issue. This is it. Sure, I can make a pretty strong gameplay-based case for Immunities, hard counters and strong resistances, too.

 

We can argue how it should be implemented, how it should work, what the merits are, how it will improve combat, and we can keep talking about how the combat is trivial or easy, and so on, and so forth.

 

But to me, yes, it matters, but to me.. it doesn't matter half as much as the fact that it's ****ing stupid.

 

I should not be able to knock amorphous blobs of ooze over with my weapons or shield.

 

I should not be able to terrify automatons, or frighten rotten vessels that even lack the most basic of drive for survival, with anything short of holy light.

 

I should not be able to set fire to fire elementals.

 

I should not be able to make enemies that do not even touch the ground come flying down because there's oil on the floor.

 

I should not be able to blind that which has no eyes to blind.

 

There's a lot of arguments to bring up, but that is the fundamental issue for me. All the other issues surrounding this is really just systemic issues with combat, but the fact that the game world does not even take itself seriously, as Stun put it, is by far the most grating offender to me. It is nothing short of insulting that we're expected to put up with it and find it reasonable. To see people grasping at straws in attempts to rationalize it is flabbergasting, and feels like nothing but flimsy post-hoc rationalizations to try to excuse the situation.

 

It makes no sense whatsoever, and the ruination of the integrity of the game world is far worse than any of the combat issues, as far as I am concerned.

 

 

But feel free to try to fix those issues too, while you're at it.

 

 

Those fire arrows really came in handy when in this situation. In fact i think before i came across an enchanted fire weapon it was the only way i was able to kill those pesky trolls, after my party knocked them out of course. It would be nice to see something like that implemented in future patches. Stone or iron golems was a whole other problem which at times rendered all but a couple of your party members useful in battling them. It really made each encounter unique in that respect.

Couldn't agree more. Meeting trolls in PoE was a real let-down. Of course, PoE unfortunately does not have ammunition, so there's not even really the possibility for this sort of mechanic, at least not in the same way... unfortunately.

 

No idea why they didn't include it. There's a point in that it's a meaningless annoyance to filling up basic ammunition, but is there no way to have infinite basic ammunition, and then special ammunition when it suits you? Of course there is, but not in PoE.

 

Most opponents in PoE doesn't feel mechanically special. The only exception I've run into so far were the teleporting shadows/shades, but even those were rather predictable and tank-spank-able. I hated golems in BG2. But that hate was earned. I don't feel strongly about any enemy in PoE that I can think of.

 

Death spells worked too IIRC.

They do.

 

 

But I think we all hate Save-or-Lose spells. Like Petrify.

 

 

Edit: Seriously, the more I think of it, the thing with how much I hated Golems in BG2, there more I realize that I can't apply that thinking to PoE at all. In any casual conversation with someone that's played BG2, I can ask "Oh, you've done that yet? How'd you like the trolls?" or "How'd you deal with XXX encounter?", and in any number of games, there are these situations where someone mentions something and everyone in the know goes "Ooooh, god, not those!" or "Haha oh wow, I friggin hated that."

 

But we didn't really hate it. Maybe it frustrated us, but we remember them with hatred even though we loved the game. We remember the ridiculously annoying babies in Silent Hill, and we remember the Adamantium Golems in BG2, and we remember being murdermauled by gibberlings in BG1, and those broken ****ing Cliff Races in Morrowind, and the ridiculous speed of the Cazadores in FO:NV.

 

But I can't think of anything that I'll bring up in a conversation about PoE that'll illicit anything resembling the same response. The Trolls? The Ogres? The Oozes? The drakes that supports the kobolds xaurips can rip you apart, but there's nothing special about them. There's nothing special about most anything. The only ones I can even imagine are the Shadows/Shades.

 

"Remember the shades right at the beginning? That was mildly annoying.".

Edited April 13, 2015 by Luckmann

[Zorfab]

Wasn't there another thead about this?

 

In any case, I'm opposed to immunities. Even a fire elemental, in my opinion, could be killed with fire. You'd just need some to turn up the heat so high in blows right past the elemental's comfort zone and goes into what it considers unbearably hot.

 

This isn't to say that I don't think monsters should have powerful resistances. In the case of a fire elemental, I'd probably go with 40 DR vs Burn AND an ability of "whenever this takes Burn damage, this heals 10 Endurance." Could you damage it with a crit Fan of Flames? Sure; a base 100 Burn crit would still go through for 50 (hot!). But if you graze you're just healing it, and a standard hit would do mediocre damage.

 

The reason I'm against immunities is because I don't like invalidating builds in an absolute sense. If a player designs his whole party around Burn damage, a fight against fire elementals should be a nightmare... but not impossible. In particular, forcing such a party to rely on an improbable string of crit RNG seems like a good way to say "you might want to change strategy instead of grinding this out." They could still grind it out, though.

 

Same thing with status ailments. I feel a level 1 Wood Elf Rogue using a Hunting Bow at a distance should have about a 20% chance of grazing a Lesser Black Ooze with the status portion of Blinding Strike, and a 80% chance of miss. No chance of a full-duration hit at all. Immune? Not quite. But close.

I don´t think this game lets you do that in any case. As far as I can see, it is very very hard to make a one trick pony type character. Weapon specs always include multiple different weapons with different damage types and rest of the feats are quite generic, applicable in just about any situation.

 

If you have wizards, priests or druids in your party you can always fall back to other elements and they are enough to deal with the enemies even if you lack the spec feats that give you extra damage. At worst you´d have to reload once and swap few spells on your grimoire if you run three wizards with same spec or something.

[scrotiemcb]

I should not be able to knock amorphous blobs of ooze over with my weapons or shield.

 

I should not be able to terrify automatons, or frighten rotten vessels that even lack the most basic of drive for survival, with anything short of holy light.

 

I should not be able to set fire to fire elementals.

 

I should not be able to make enemies that do not even touch the ground come flying down because there's oil on the floor.

 

I should not be able to blind that which has no eyes to blind.

I'll agree with you regarding knocking amorphous oozes down with something as trivial as a shield bash. However, I don't think it should be impossible to knock an ooze out with a magical sleeping spell, or cause them to slip around on an oily surface. These things might be very, very difficult to pull off, however.

 

I think it should be possible to terrify constructs or undead. In this game's lore, undead are more properly called vessels - vessels for human or animal souls. Can you terrify humans or animals? Of course you can. However, I could also see how it would be very difficult to scare such souls, because they've been through a lot already.

 

Fire elementals should already be on fire, I'll give you that much. And being on fire should be a good thing in their book, healing them or some similar. This isn't to say you couldn't set them on fire; first, use cold or wet to smolder their fire, then set them alight once more. No idea why you'd do this, but you could.

 

If said fire elemental is solid or liquid in any way, there should be a temperature which causes its current form to change. It has occurred to me that perhaps boiling a liquid fire elemental just turns it into an even hotter, more dangerous gaseous fire elemental - in other words, destroying its body merely creates a better one for it to use. So in the specific case of "this monster is a living avatar of this elemental damage type" I can accept an immunity.

 

You should be able to make flying enemies come down to the ground (ex: Fighter's Knock Down). You should be able to make them vulnerable to ground hazards after you have done so. But you're right, Slicken shouldn't really work on flying enemies.

 

Lastly, I've got a story about organisms without eyes. When I was in Afghanistan there were these locusts everywhere. If you've ever dealt with these things you know they have no apparent self-preservation instinct and will just land right in front of you and chill. I got bored, and removed the antennae from one, leaving it otherwise unharmed. Although it has eyes as well, it clearly doesn't use them much; it could no longer fly in a straight line, kept flying directly into walls, and I believe eventually killed itself flying too fast into a wall. A little more gruesome than I intended.

 

The point is that even an eyeless black ooze has sense organs of some type (or types). You needn't attack eyes to functionally blind something. Now, in the case of an ooze this might be very difficult, or in some cases practically impossible (for example, if each individual cell of the ooze has sensory capacity), but it should not be a simple case of "no eyes, can't blind," but instead a more complicated lore decision which asks "how is this entity aware of its surroundings?" Maybe even update the Bestiary ooze you successfully Blind an ooze to explain how your character eventually figured it out.

 

In general, hard things should be hard, not impossible. In a fantasy setting I'm a huge opponent of "impossible" and a big proponent of "you have to be pretty epic to pull that off." And sometimes lucky, too. Heck, they could be achievements. Give oozes, I don't know, +80 to defense vs Blind, and make an achievement called "Blind an ooze." Or "Terrify a Flesh Construct." Etc.

Edited April 13, 2015 by scrotiemcb

[Belsirk]

I don't find many problem with the spells, after all here the things are different than in D&D.  The spells from wizards, chantiers and ciphers  affect the souls or the energy around the soul.  The undead are souls, the elemental are souls, the bat fire is soul.  So, yes,  if the spell blind the soul, then everyone can be blinded by the spell, if the poison is against the soul, then yes, is raw damage to everything.

 

The ozee become knockdown? maybe the hit was enough for dispersing (now, this is debatable) and as other already say it, you can knock an ogre, but good lucking doing it.

[Luckmann]

I don't find many problem with the spells, after all here the things are different than in D&D.  The spells from wizards, chantiers and ciphers  affect the souls or the energy around the soul.  The undead are souls, the elemental are souls, the bat fire is soul.  So, yes,  if the spell blind the soul, then everyone can be blinded by the spell, if the poison is against the soul, then yes, is raw damage to everything.

 

The ozee become knockdown? maybe the hit was enough for dispersing (now, this is debatable) and as other already say it, you can knock an ogre, but good lucking doing it.

 

You're grasping at straws, though. I would accept "blinding the soul" with certain Abilities or Spells, sure. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about things like the Rogue's Blinding Strike and the Wizard's Chill Fog. You throw sand into the eyes of an opponent, stab towards their eyes, cause an intense cold fog, or distort their vision with ice crystals and snow.

 

Would I accept, say, the Cipher's Eyestrike ability arguably "blinding the soul", or just sorta blasting the senses of the enemy. I would rename it Blindstrike, just to be clear, and fluff it a bit, but I could accept that, and have it apply to enemies that do not have eyes.

 

And knocking down an ooze? We're talking about an amorphous mass of slime. I'd be fine with saying "Hey, concussive effects like the Fighter's Knockdown ability causes double damage" or something like that, but actually making that thing go prone? No. It's just too silly.

 

And knocking down an Ogre, as was clarified right after "other already say it", that's not even hard. You don't need good luck for that. There is nothing unique about an Ogre's Fortitude saves. They're lower than an Adra Beetle's, lower than a garden variety Troll's, lower than an Animal's, lower than some of the Oozes/puddings and just about any non-undead of 7th level or higher.

 

 

[...]

 

In general, hard things should be hard, not impossible. In a fantasy setting I'm a huge opponent of "impossible" and a big proponent of "you have to be pretty epic to pull that off." And sometimes lucky, too. Heck, they could be achievements. Give oozes, I don't know, +80 to defense vs Blind, and make an achievement called "Blind an ooze." Or "Terrify a Flesh Construct." Etc.

 

In general, I agree; I would like to see a lot of "hard, but not impossible", but I still think that there should be quite a lot of immunities, in the cases where it makes sense. For example, I don't think an Ogre should be immune to Prone, but it should be damn hard to knock him down, and certainly not with a Graze, no matter if the Graze is for 1 second.

 

And drakes shouldn't be immune to Prone either, not even a little, but certainly to Slicken (which should be made back into a Hazard AoE).

 

And while Oozes obviously have some kind of sensory organs, blinding them makes no sense in the vast majority of cases. I will concede that it can make sense under certain circumstances, but they need to be specific, not just any kind of blinding attack, and they should certainly be immune to any and all Prone effects.

[Zwiebelchen]

Hey I made this chart showing what all monsters are vulnerable or resistant to ( in terms of Damage Reduction/Defenses)

 

(SPOILERS: Monster names!)

 

Pillars of Eternity: Monster Strengths and Weaknesses

 

Hope this helps

 

This is an awesome collection you have there... can I ask maybe for you to include the accuracy values of enemies aswell, as that's also an interesting information to know? Pretty please

 

 

Also, it's weird how almost all enemies have low will-defenses. No wonder why ciphers are so damn OP.

 

And lol, literally the only enemies that have low fortitude defenses are shadows, phantoms and shades. I will definitely remember that for my first Ironman playthrough (and stockpile on scrolls that target fortitude defenses just to **** with those shadows).

Edited April 14, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[Stun]

Also, it's weird how almost all enemies have low will-defenses. No wonder why ciphers are so damn OP.

Yep. This makes PoE the true spiritual successor to Icewind Dale 2. lol

 

All the enemies in IWD2 had crap will saves, which was why spells like Chaos, Mass Domination and Symbol of Hopelessness were so overpowered.

[Namutree]

 

Yep. This makes PoE the true spiritual successor to Icewind Dale 2. lol

 

All the enemies in IWD2 had crap will saves, which was why spells like Chaos, Mass Domination and Symbol of Hopelessness were so overpowered.

 

Josh Sawyer doesn't like willpower. He saw that some enemies had decent will defense/saves in his games, nerfed the crap out of them, and went, "that's really cool.". 

[Luckmann]

Yep. This makes PoE the true spiritual successor to Icewind Dale 2. lol

 

All the enemies in IWD2 had crap will saves, which was why spells like Chaos, Mass Domination and Symbol of Hopelessness were so overpowered.

I never thought of the fact that IWD2 had so much lower saves than the other IE games, but that does explain why I got such a consistent, crazy mileage out of Finger of Death. I played a hilarious game with a death/shadow-based party once (Demarch of Mask, Necromancer, etc) where I just sorta walked around and went "pew-pew" with my index finger and killed everything instantly.

 

I wonder if Sawyer's irrational hatred of Save-or-Lose/Hard Counters predates or comes from this, because damn encounters in IWD2 could be trivialized with Save-or-Whatever spells. But on the other hand, same thing could be said about Mask of the Betrayer, although to be fair, the time I ran through all the endgame enemies and spammed Wail of the Banshee, I had actually built for it (Spell Focus, etc).

 

I was so surprised that they could even be killed with that, considering that they were some kind of shadows or something (I honestly don't remember what they were; you run around some shadow-realm of Crossroad Keep, if memory serves).

[fxluk]

Unfortunately the more I play this game the more I don't understand devs decisions about mechanics of this game. I am just 15h in game but I already starting to see that combat gets repetetive.

 

Originally I rolled with Rogue PC but when I found out that stealth is pretty useless and I can't get any backstabs because I get out of combat when combat starts (what the hell were they thinking?) I rolled to Cipher.

 

Now my combat looks like that: engagement - cast Mental Binding, Eder engages I cast Mind Blades and do rest of damage with my party. I can paralyze/root/blind every opponent which is just ridiculous. (I play on Hard).

 

Why there are no immunities/resistances? From what I just saw they got the casual way of working but I don't know really why. 

Thats the fun in it to react in combat, switch spells, use another weapon etc.

 

Second problem is the engage system but this is a discussion for another topic also IE mod can turn it off.

 

I also don't understand the angle to just remove something that wasn't perfect in BG2/IWD.

Why do they have 01 system instead of getting a good mechanics from those game and make it even better in POE.

[Eurhetemec]

I should not be able to terrify automatons, or frighten rotten vessels that even lack the most basic of drive for survival, with anything short of holy light.

 

Make your mind up. If vessels can be terrified by holy light, they have some sort of survival instinct, period.

 

What you seem to be missing with this example is that, unlike Dungeons and Dragons, in Pillars of Exile, both of these things have souls. Souls which can be targeted by magic - Cipher, Chanter, Priest, Wizard, etc. - doesn't matter which, they have souls. Those souls can be hit with magic, and thus they should not be completely immune to fear etc.

 

Some of your other examples are valid, some aren't, most are a bit simplistic.

[Luckmann]

 

I should not be able to terrify automatons, or frighten rotten vessels that even lack the most basic of drive for survival, with anything short of holy light.

 

Make your mind up. If vessels can be terrified by holy light, they have some sort of survival instinct, period.

 

What you seem to be missing with this example is that, unlike Dungeons and Dragons, in Pillars of Exile, both of these things have souls. Souls which can be targeted by magic - Cipher, Chanter, Priest, Wizard, etc. - doesn't matter which, they have souls. Those souls can be hit with magic, and thus they should not be completely immune to fear etc.

 

Some of your other examples are valid, some aren't, most are a bit simplistic.

 

 

No, there's a difference between a threat of physical harm, and banishment. A barbaric yell would do nothing vs. a vessel or spirit, but shattering their simple minds by a blinding flash of holy light is different. Terrify is not always just Terrify, just like Prone isn't always just Prone - for example, flying opponents should not be subject to terrain effects like Slicken, but they should still be able to be attacked with Knockdown.

 

But you also call it Pillars of Exile, so.. eh, not sure of how serious I should take you.

[Eurhetemec]

 

Yep. This makes PoE the true spiritual successor to Icewind Dale 2. lol

 

All the enemies in IWD2 had crap will saves, which was why spells like Chaos, Mass Domination and Symbol of Hopelessness were so overpowered.

I never thought of the fact that IWD2 had so much lower saves than the other IE games, but that does explain why I got such a consistent, crazy mileage out of Finger of Death. I played a hilarious game with a death/shadow-based party once (Demarch of Mask, Necromancer, etc) where I just sorta walked around and went "pew-pew" with my index finger and killed everything instantly.

 

I wonder if Sawyer's irrational hatred of Save-or-Lose/Hard Counters predates or comes from this, because damn encounters in IWD2 could be trivialized with Save-or-Whatever spells. But on the other hand, same thing could be said about Mask of the Betrayer, although to be fair, the time I ran through all the endgame enemies and spammed Wail of the Banshee, I had actually built for it (Spell Focus, etc).

 

I was so surprised that they could even be killed with that, considering that they were some kind of shadows or something (I honestly don't remember what they were; you run around some shadow-realm of Crossroad Keep, if memory serves).

 

 

All games derived from 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons, including the ones you've mentioned, and, obviously, actual P&P D&D (and 3.5E and to a slightly lesser extent Pathfinder), have this precise problem.

 

This is because you are now rolling against a DC set by the CASTER of the spell, rather than against a fixed number on a table based on your class and the type of attack. In 2E, it was very hard to cause penalties to people's saves. In 3E, however, it was very very very easy (Spell Focus being one way, as you notice, boosted casting stat being the other) to push the save DC sky-high, to the point where even very tough enemies had at most a slim chance of surviving Save-or-Die or Save-or-Suck spells (the latter being spells that didn't kill you, but might as well have).

 

Pillars doesn't have the same problem, because it doesn't have Save-or-Die spells and has very few Save-or-Suck spells, and they're much much shorter in duration than in 3E D&D. So no, it isn't the spiritual successor to IWD2 or the like.

 

The one thing I would like to see is the suggestion that grazes with CC spells might need to be misses on the CC component.

[Eurhetemec]

 

 

I should not be able to terrify automatons, or frighten rotten vessels that even lack the most basic of drive for survival, with anything short of holy light.

 

Make your mind up. If vessels can be terrified by holy light, they have some sort of survival instinct, period.

 

What you seem to be missing with this example is that, unlike Dungeons and Dragons, in Pillars of Exile, both of these things have souls. Souls which can be targeted by magic - Cipher, Chanter, Priest, Wizard, etc. - doesn't matter which, they have souls. Those souls can be hit with magic, and thus they should not be completely immune to fear etc.

 

Some of your other examples are valid, some aren't, most are a bit simplistic.

 

 

No, there's a difference between a threat of physical harm, and banishment. A barbaric yell would do nothing vs. a vessel or spirit, but shattering their simple minds by a blinding flash of holy light is different. Terrify is not always just Terrify, just like Prone isn't always just Prone - for example, flying opponents should not be subject to terrain effects like Slicken, but they should still be able to be attacked with Knockdown.

 

But you also call it Pillars of Exile, so.. eh, not sure of how serious I should take you.

 

 

But there's literally no difference between magic that affects a target's soul and magic that affects a target's soul. This isn't D&D. That cannot be emphasized enough.

 

(Reading Path of Exile new expansion news lol sorry for typo!)

[Althernai]

I'm OK with Fear and the like affecting constructs and undead or Blindness affecting slimes. If it has enough motivation to attack you, there should be something that gives it pause and if it can somehow sense you, you should be able to dull those senses. On the other hand, oil on the floor knocking down flying creatures... yeah, that doesn't really make much sense.

[Stun]

But there's literally no difference between magic that affects a target's soul and magic that affects a target's soul.

You mean, magic that affects a targets soul vs. magic that affects a target's physical body?

 

Oh yes there is. Especially in this game. In PoE, magic that affects a target's soul has its own specific and defined classification: Animancy. It would RUIN what little uniqueness this game world's lore has if every Wizard, Chanter, Priest, Druid, Rogue and Fighter was a friggin Animancer simply because their basic class skills see them blinding things, proning things, slickening things, sickening things, petrifying things, hobbling things, confusing things, frightening things, burning things etc.

 

Enough already with this ridiculous attempt to explain away the indefensible.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Stun

[Elerond]

 

Immunities from both side (for pc and creature) doesn't appeal me at all, it makes me feel lame.

Pro for high resistance to a type of damage but not immunity.

Fire sword on fire elemental? It's going to take the iron anyway.

 

Rename the blindness status into senseless: you don't put the blind malus, but you affects all senses to give a mean to the accuracy malus usually blind does.

Blind creatures can't easily hit if not because of the other senses. But immunities? No, please

Please... So you find logical creature with no eyes can be blinded?.. Or total fire composed creature can burn....This is lazy....And kinda stupid...Some ennemy must have some immunity don't doing so means go in the realm of nonsense...and see a creature with no eyes blinded no matter how you turn the table but sound Lame and stupid.. This things is what add to gameplay strategy and depth.. Deny them is just a lazy decision no excuses...

 

That was a bad choice... And not logic at all..

 

 

If creature is not blind already then it should be possible to blind it somehow because it has some sort optic nerve or sensor that gives it ability to see things around it. So if creature don't have any way to see things around it it should have blinded status already, but maybe have some abilities that negate some of those minuses. And then there should be consideration should they be able to attack rogues that are used their ability to become invisible etc. things.

 

And creatures that are totally composed from fire, what is the material that burns and creates those flames, oxygen in air? What is the force that keeps it in coherent form? What gives it ability to move? Why this things should be immune to all the heath even if they can resist heat that comes from burning oxygen/etc.. It is not logical that they would have immunity towards every heat based attack regardless how much energy it has backing it. It is like saying that things that can resist campfire can resist heat in heart of sun.

 

If you bring logic in things of magic then go all the way or leave it to be.

[Amentep]

Yeah it's a bit silly that I can knock a jelly prone (isn't it already lying on the ground?) or blind a creature which clearly has no eyes.

 

Perhaps they thought it would be too difficult to keep track of which monsters are immune to what effects.

 

 

Since everything uses souls and soul power in the game...you're probably knocking that jelly's soul prone and blinding the eyeless creature's soul so it can't sense however it is that it senses with its soul.

 

This means fire burns the Flame Blights soul too.

 

[Stun]

^you're joking, but we've seen at least 2 other posters on this thread putting that up as an actual explanation.

 

Which means everyone in this game practices Animancy. (including all level 1 fighters who use their per-encounter knockdown to manipulate souls) Which means the lore, and the game's main plot, doesn't make a lick of sense.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Stun

[Elerond]

They were originally going route where every class uses their souls power to power their abilities, but I think they changed this explanation during development as people wanted non-magic classes.

 

But originally fighters ability knock people down and do other things were explained that they can rise their strength for short while by channelling power from their soul to their hit. And rogues were able to use their soul power to make people not notice them and so on. I am not sure what explanation if any they currently use.

 

Ciphers are only class that have abilities to touch other people's souls although animancer have find "scientific" ways to do so too, but I don't think that is because power of their soul but other means that have ability to manipulate power of souls. Methods for this aren't described very accurately anywhere at least I haven't found any comprehensive explanations.   

[Amentep]

^you're joking, but we've seen at least 2 other posters on this thread putting that up as an actual explanation.

 

Which means everyone in this game practices Animancy. (including all level 1 fighters who use their per-encounter knockdown to manipulate souls) Which means the lore, and the game's main plot, doesn't make a lick of sense.

 

Yeah not reading all of the thread to see if anyone suggested it seriously meant that my joke was wasted.

 

For what its worth, I can live with the disconnect of knocking a jelly prone (because its a game rather than a simulation), but it doesn't terribly make a lot of sense removed from a game context (ie if you were writing a PoE novel, writing that Eder knocked the jelly prone would just be silly).

[InfiniteEternity]

My biggest issue with combat is, that (atleast on path of the damned) that 90% of the fights with a challenge its designed around standing in bottle necks and door ways.

 

Why? That is nor fun, heroic or exciting in the long run. And this also favours a ranged party setup..which I dont like either.

[Luckmann]

 

 

 

I should not be able to terrify automatons, or frighten rotten vessels that even lack the most basic of drive for survival, with anything short of holy light.

 

Make your mind up. If vessels can be terrified by holy light, they have some sort of survival instinct, period.

 

What you seem to be missing with this example is that, unlike Dungeons and Dragons, in Pillars of Exile, both of these things have souls. Souls which can be targeted by magic - Cipher, Chanter, Priest, Wizard, etc. - doesn't matter which, they have souls. Those souls can be hit with magic, and thus they should not be completely immune to fear etc.

 

Some of your other examples are valid, some aren't, most are a bit simplistic.

 

 

No, there's a difference between a threat of physical harm, and banishment. A barbaric yell would do nothing vs. a vessel or spirit, but shattering their simple minds by a blinding flash of holy light is different. Terrify is not always just Terrify, just like Prone isn't always just Prone - for example, flying opponents should not be subject to terrain effects like Slicken, but they should still be able to be attacked with Knockdown.

 

But you also call it Pillars of Exile, so.. eh, not sure of how serious I should take you.

 

 

But there's literally no difference between magic that affects a target's soul and magic that affects a target's soul. This isn't D&D. That cannot be emphasized enough.

 

(Reading Path of Exile new expansion news lol sorry for typo!)

 

There's a huge difference. Not only are far from all Abilities "from the soul" other than in it's most basic form (Rogues, Fighters, for example, mostly have nothing that can be described as supernatural feats of strength or soul-power), but even those that are from the soul, directed force of personality, focused soul-power, "ki", "focus", "wounds" or whatever, are virtually never implied to affect the soul.

 

Just because you have the mental focus and presence of mind to direct electrical energy from your fists, do not mean that you are influencing the soul of whomever you are hitting in a meaningful way. There are words in the game world for people that can do this, and it's "Cipher" and "Animancer". And even so, many of the things a Cipher can do is not implied to be so much subtle or direct manipulation of an enemy's soul as much as it is directing his own soul, the souls of his allies, or to basically thrash the souls of his opponents in order to achieve real-like, out-of-body effects.

 

And like I have said repeatedly, in some cases, it can be appropriate to argue "You affected his soul". These are however isolated cases, at best. You cannot reasonably argue that a Blinding Strike from a Rogue is implied to target the enemy soul. You cannot reasonably argue that a Fighter's Knockdown somehow knocks down the soul of the opponent. It's ridiculous.

 

If you want to argue that a Cipher's Eyestrike should still cause eyeless opponents to be blinded, as it targets the general senses of the opponent, through affecting his soul? You have my ear. But as a matter of fact, in general, as a matter of principle? No. No way.

[Cronstintein]

The "soul arguments" strike me as very silly.  When I throw dirt in someone's eyes I'm attacking their soul? Gimme a break.

 

Blinding oozes strikes me as equally dumb tbh. 

 

And you guys, in your rush to defend the game's unrealistic design choices, are missing the greater picture:  Removing all special defenses from the enemies has resulted in combat that is completely flat.  Every fight is basically the same.  The way to change that is to vary the defenses/attacks of the bad guys.

 

By making oozes immune/resistant to many common types of CC and attack, you could have an enemy that actually requires a brain-cell to combat rather than <run tanks in, attack from range> which is EVERY FREAKING FIGHT.