A beginner's guide [guide edition 1.2]

[wojciech]

i registered just to give author GREAT THANKS for that! You really helped me a lot. I`m 33 years old, last time i played Baldurs Gate when i was about 15 and getting back without this great (because so simple) guide would be so much harder. Those basics where just what i needed. Thank you one more time, cheers from Kraków. 

[Boeroer]

Ahh the youngsters - so enthusiastic.

[Matroska]

Great rundown. I've played BG1&2, PS:T and the other IE games a lot, although admittedly mostly about 15-20 years ago, but I find it hard to get my head around some of the things in PoE. The mechanics don't seem to stick in my head that well for some reason. One thing I'm not sure about is how exactly do crits work? I know the higher the accuracy compared to deflection, the higher the crit chance is, right? But is there a base crit chance that goes up due to the excess accuracy, or is it that if you exceed their deflection (or whatever) by a large enough amount, it's automatically a crit? For example, with hypothetical values, everyone has a 1% chance to crit (if you hit) but every 2 points your accuracy goes above the required amount to hit adds another 1% crit chance? Or for the second one, if you exceed the hit value by 40, it's a crit?

[Boeroer]

This should explain things:

https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Attack_Resolution

In addition to that you can also convert hits to crits with some special enchantments or abilites. So you actually rolled oly a hit, but then the game does another roll to see if it can get "upgraded" to a crit. 

Crits do +50% duration (if the effect you apply has a duration in the first place) and/or +50% additive damage. So it's not so that all of your damage you rolled gets multiplied by 1.5 - but it merely adds another damage modifier to your weapon's base damge (which never changes) that adds up with the other modifiers (like Sneak Attack or Savage Attack and so on). So Sneak Attack + Crit doesn't mean [weapon_dmg_roll] * 1.5sneak * 1.5crit but instead it means [weapon_dmg_roll] * (1weapon_dmg_roll + 0.5sneak +0.5crit). It's still powerful, but not as powerful as if it would be a multiplier. Its impact is highest in the early game since you won't have much other damage modifiers. Once you start stacking more and more of them (e.g. with weapon enchantments and talents/abilites) it will lose a bit of impact on the overall damage. For durations it's always useful. 

[Boeroer]

oops - nevermind, wrong thread.

Edited November 26, 2019 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

@Ben No.4 Servus!  

 

Edited May 15, 2021 by Boeroer

[draego]

@Ben No.4 i still direct new people here from other places when they have questions this guide can answer