How important is Resolve for me, really?

[Sharidin]

Hey everyone! I've been having a blast finishing the game with solo characters and my completionist playthrough with an RP-themed Vailian, Fire Godlike, Darcozzi Paladin on PotD without min-maxed stats to do all achievements, slay all big baddies and complete quest rewards in the "best" possible way. So this last one was a good guy deep down, but now I feel it's time to do my evil completionist playthrough. Now, I always try to play my evil guy as a monk with the premade companions and it usually turns out fun: brawler cannibal in Fallout, lawful evil BGT monk, ultimate betrayal amulet monk in NWN2-MotB, physical adept in Shadowrun etc...

 

The problem is, I wanna try to min-max my stats a bit this time around and I've been thinking a lot about resolve and its usefulness in this case. The paladin made good use of the high Resolve tanking and getting best outcomes in conversations, but from what I remember usually it was about trying to avoid fights and fighting less enemies, and in some cases deceiving NPCs to keep some items instead of handing them out or keeping them with reputation losses. Thing is, how useful would that be to me if my evil monk is actually looking for a fight instead? What if he doesn't care about bad reputations for keeping an item or about doing the good/right/smart thing in a quest?

 

I also know Resolve helps with will saves, concentration and incoming damage. But I need to get hit for wounds, and probably trigger Sanguine Plate + Shod-in-Faith combo to skip swift strikes (I will have Pallegina for Lay on Hands and Reinforcing Exhortation, too). Being interrupted can be a problem when you have 2-3 or more hitting you but it can be avoided usually. And also, my maxed FaC Paladin with high Intelligence+Resolve, +9 save item and chanter+priest buffs was always getting confused or dominated no matter what in my last PotD run...

 

For a bit of additional info, I'm thinking of minimizing Intelligence and Resolve, going Iron + Turning wheel build, with Torment's Reach spam, a mystic from White that Wends and trying to decide on a nice racial (probably going pale elf for the RP and the ugly portrait). So really, how important could Resolve be for an evil guy like this one?

[Raven Darkholme]

You don't need to worry about getting wounds.

First of all, PER doesn't give deflection anymore, so all deflection based chars have 10 less DEF.

Also those kind of classes tend to use at least a small shield, a monk is not gonna use any shield.

The real question is if you really needed resolve even if you wanted to max it.

The answer I think is no, especially in a party and with the CON buffs. (Monk had beastly HP even before those).

Another question is how many deceptive aka evil speech checks require you to have high RES, but I don't think it's too many.

[Mocker22]

I would take a close look at Kdubya's Juggernaut monk. It's my go to for the class and works very well as a front-liner. I believe he leaves Res at 10.

[Boeroer]

If you dump it, you will be critted to death - if you raise it, you will receive not enough wounds... walking a tightrope.

 

Most of the time It's around 10 for my monks.

[KDubya]

I like balanced stats now with pretty much every class, especially with a Monk. Dumping intellect has some really bad side effects on the durations of all your buffs, the area of your AoE attacks like Torment's Reach and maybe the duration of your wounds (not sure, never tested). A great buff like lightning strikes adding +25% lightning lash and a +25% attack speed buff gets hammered if you drop intellect and go from a 10 second duration to something closer to five seconds.

 

As others have pointed out getting wounds on PotD is not an issue. Avoiding excessive crits is always a good idea, you'll still activate Sanguine and Shod in Faith in the first few seconds of every fight.

 

Another boon is you can buff a 10 resolve via expensive dragon food, items and stronghold resting bonus to a 19 which is enough to talk the Alpine Dragon down if you want to. Lower than a ten leaves you short of the threshold.

[PrimeJunta]

Some classes really want balanced stats, notably the monk and barbarian. Not so with many others though. Con is dumpable to 8 or so for most classes, 3 for back-row ones; Int is dumpable for fighters, Mig, Dex, and Per for any tightly-focused support character (support-focused paladin or priest in particular), Dex and Mig for any tightly-focused tank (might still want Per to be able to Interrupt), and so on.

 

But that's okay. While far from perfect, as they are the stats nicely support different builds. Want a damage-focused fighter? Dump Int, average Con and Res, pump Mig and Per, and have above-average Dex. Want a tanky fighter? Dump Int, Mig, and Dex, pump Res, Con, and Per. And so on.

[Raven Darkholme]

Some classes really want balanced stats, notably the monk and barbarian. Not so with many others though. Con is dumpable to 8 or so for most classes, 3 for back-row ones; Int is dumpable for fighters, Mig, Dex, and Per for any tightly-focused support character (support-focused paladin or priest in particular), Dex and Mig for any tightly-focused tank (might still want Per to be able to Interrupt), and so on.

 

But that's okay. While far from perfect, as they are the stats nicely support different builds. Want a damage-focused fighter? Dump Int, average Con and Res, pump Mig and Per, and have above-average Dex. Want a tanky fighter? Dump Int, Mig, and Dex, pump Res, Con, and Per. And so on.

Can't really agree on your points about defensive fighter, needs INT and MIG for several traits.

You've got to have quite balanced stats for a def fighter DEX is easiest dumpable but is better at something like 6, CON doesn't need to be higher than 12.

[PrimeJunta]

Can't really agree on your points about defensive fighter, needs INT and MIG for several traits.

You've got to have quite balanced stats for a def fighter DEX is easiest dumpable but is better at something like 6, CON doesn't need to be higher than 12.

 

Hmm, MIG for the self-heal, INT for the duration-based things? What if you build it entirely around modals?

[Raven Darkholme]

 

Can't really agree on your points about defensive fighter, needs INT and MIG for several traits.

You've got to have quite balanced stats for a def fighter DEX is easiest dumpable but is better at something like 6, CON doesn't need to be higher than 12.

 

Hmm, MIG for the self-heal, INT for the duration-based things? What if you build it entirely around modals?

 

Well even the self heal is duration based.

As long as you don't solo it doesn't matter anyway. You can definitely build it around modals then.

If you solo you'll look for max efficiency and since fights are longer you want long durations and since 1 char doesn't do a lot of damage you want to maximise that too.

[PrimeJunta]

Solo builds are a bit of a different beast than team builds though, as efficiency isn't enough, you have to consider all-round versatility. With a party it's no problem if you have one guy sitting out a fight where they really can't do much to help, with solo that won't work.

[Raven Darkholme]

Solo builds are a bit of a different beast than team builds though, as efficiency isn't enough, you have to consider all-round versatility. With a party it's no problem if you have one guy sitting out a fight where they really can't do much to help, with solo that won't work.

True, tho depending on personal playstyles some people including me, play their party chars quite similar to solo.

In Pillars your attributes don't really define whether you play ranged or melee for example, so whether you want more defense or are ok with squishy is totally down to personal taste.

[PrimeJunta]

True that. The attributes aren't ultimately all that important. Int probably has the most visible and dramatic effect, you really do notice the difference between Int 3 and Int 20 AoE's and durations, especially if playing a caster. Not that much difference with a fighter or rogue, depending on how you pick the talents...