thelee

either/or. this unfortunately has been an issue since 1.0, believe me i've personally reported it multiple times. even without modifiers, the damage that seals do in practice is under what the base tooltip is. i think the root cause is that seals create hazard effects, and hazards are handled really really really weird in the game. Walls are also hazards and behave weirdly (like they get partial assassinate bonuses from assassin and don't break stealth), but seals in particular are very weird because walls at least do their stated damage. The biggest thing is that yes, they do a fraction of the tooltip damage, and I don't know why. For this reason they are mostly useful for their secondary effects (prone for repulsing, interrupt for warding, and blind for searing) and the ability to cast them from stealth outside of combat (which lets you refresh a spell slot).

hi, i don't think your question makes sense? You have to go through Berath in order to start Deadfire.

slight thread necro, but Kingmaker and especially Wrath of the Righteous are extremely inaccessible IMO. Very relentless curve to learn the extremely complicated mechanics quickly and very punishing for suboptimal builds. Some people are really into that aspect, though. I ended up having to watch a ton of youtube build videos (despite being familiar with 3/3.5e, the PF1e ancestors) because I was getting extremely overwhelmed by the mechanics and decision points. i only played a couple of casual 5e sessions, but imo BG3 is better thought of as an immersive sim RPG (immersive sim = think like the Prey remake which had very open mechanics and world exploration) that just happens to have a D&D 5e flavor, than a D&D 5e game. Lots of very important mechanics that are Larian specials and not D&D rules (the massive interactions with surfaces of various types, extreme verticality, interesting itemization [I don't think stuff like Lightning Charges or Arcane Acuity are D&D]). Even when they are D&D rules, Larian adapts them in a way that make them pretty special or distinct (jumping is a lot easier, the extreme verticality makes athletics a very valuable skill, etc). Combat in BG3 is legit great and is a great argument for turn-based, i don't think it could possibly work as well in RTwP. edit: put another way, if I spend an hour in a single battle in pathfinder crpgs, or classic BG, it's extremely annoying or something has gone really badly. Spending an hour in combat in Deadfire or BG3: very satisfying.

as i mentioned chain lightning will not bounce back to enemies you've already hit. So if there are three enemies: A, B, C and you target A, chain lightning will bounce to B and then to C and then be unable to find another target it hasn't already hit, and give up. some abilities will bounce repeatedly. If you cast firebug, then what will happen is: you target A, firebug will bounce to B, and then to C, and then bounce again randomly to A or B and then again, and then again, etc until all bounces are exhausted. So the number of bounces you see on the tooltip for Chain Lightning is not what you'll see in practice, unless there are lots of enemies. Some abilities bounce to enemies they've already hit, some don't, there's no real pattern, and there's no way to really know without just manually testing.

if you're playing assassin, i might actually suggest might instead of perception (or skip both and just do dexterity). Sneak attack doesn't boost druid DoT damage, and the assassinate bonus will make up for deficiencies in accuracy, just make sure you hit enemies from stealth and only use smoke veil or potions of invisibility (don't use shadowing beyond in combination with spells, it's very flaky, see here: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/invisibility-vs-stealth or the assassin section here: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/rogue) but intellect is definitely highest priority. i've actually been thinking of doing a similar build myself, and personally i think i'd move away from the lance or the spine despite the overall druid benefits. there are some other stat sticks to use that might be more in sync with a rogue's martial capabilities, like griffin's blade (enchanted to offer +10% spell damage) or azure blade (ancient's mushroom summons will help keep the accuracy bonus procced, and the interrupt chance works with spells: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/126748-list-of-weapons-whose-properties-are-not-limited-to-themselves-ii/) though if you do stick with druid's reliable quarterstaff or pike weapons, they might make for good backstab candidates

it's very possible that the PL adjustment is applied directly to the roll. This happens with martial abilities most obviously (the ones that say "full attack" or "primary attack"), if you empower them there's no evidence of a damage boost in the combat log calculations but you'll definitely be rolling numbers well outside what should be possible. i haven't tested scrolls extensively, but ISTR that they should be getting all the correct PL bonuses and it might be that they just get the damage adjustments directly to their rolls. it's cumulative with inversions, which is similar (but not as strong as) to combining multiplicatively. So the last bounce will be really weak. (This hurts the druid's Firebug a lot, which has a -25% malus, so after just a few bounces you're doing piddling damage.) IIRC, all bounce effects in Deadfire continue to bounce even if one bounce misses. This is different from PoE1 where a miss would stop all bouncing (very annoying). However, abilities in Deadfire vary on whether or not they are allowed to re-affect an enemy they already hit. Chain Lightning will not bounce back to an enemy it already hit, so very often you'll get way fewer hits than you expect. (By contrast, the aforementioned Firebug will happily bounce back to foes it already hit, which helps make up for its massive malus.) If I had to hazard a guess, I would say most bounce effects re-affect an enemy, Chain Lightning is just among a handful of exceptions, probably for balance reasons (I would guess Cleansing Flame also doesn't re-affect enemies).

note - OP is asking about BG1 and 2, not BG3.

no kidding. dorudugan has just collapsed from being a tough puzzle to crack for any given party, to being the easiest megaboss, that literally any setup can take on (with enough time). no needing to worry about resource management or generation, or stacking on defenses or accuracy bonuses, or timing knock ups, dodging fireballs, etc

"many lives" is a chant that automatically plays, bypassing normal action economy and recovery. so you'll be creating skeletons even if you're busy weapon switching (albeit weak skeletons).

To me, it's very very hard to compare the games. They're basically separated by decades. BG1 & 2 are great games, but even the enhanced editions really show their age. BG1's writing is pretty torturous (a lot of faux-middle-ages dialogue), and you'll do tons of aimless wandering through identical-looking and vast, empty wilderness (i basically keep a walkthrough open so i know where to go on any map for the interesting stuff). BG2 has much better writing and better area design, but the system is just creakingly dated compared to more modern CRPGs. to the actual meat of the question, you should just go for Deadfire for now. Then if you're still hankering for more party-based iso-style CRPGs, I would do Wrath of the Righteous or Kingmaker. And if you're still trying to scratch the itch, then go for Baldur's Gate 1 & 2. like xzar_monty said, even if you play a lot of these games to death, there's only a handful of them with no time horizon for more, so you'll probably eventually find your way to Baldur's Gate 1 or 2 in the end. though personally I would skip straight to 3 unless you really want the isometric experience.

wow awesome. this might be the easiest dorudugan tech yet. you don't even need blackjacket for this, am i right? because unlike the recovery reduction stuff, you don't care whether or not your blackjacket (or whomever) ever gets a turn again, you're just dedicating whomever has this weapon to just perma-extending the recovery of the enemy, even if they're forever stuck trying to recover from weapon switching.

i don't understand these. what do you mean "riposte"? and what do you mean "engagement bonus will stop enemies at range?"

did this end up working with dorudugan???

omg that sounds zany. would be insanely micromanagement heavy, but for those up for the task... i actually had a build in poe1 bc there was a unique item that reduced weapon switch times, but combined with poe1's quick switch you actually had less than 0s weapon switch recovery time, which meant it reduced whatever recovery you had active. even though it was a lot of micromanagement, i definitely did do that to have a caster who could basically empty their spellbook at the start of a fight. glad to see that it turns out that the idea is alive and well today

i think they just mean when you recover you can switch to the squid weapon slot and your recovery will go faster because you now have an active +20% action speed bonus. what's the outworn buckler trick?