2003

Stealth does let you find a TON of secret items, though.

2004

It does not hurt to have one high stealth character if you want to rob everyone blind but IIRC there are no stealth dialogue checks. Mechanics nets you a lot of bonus xp and loot (and is used to find secrets) but you need to max it to make it worthwhile.

I’d go with lore, survival and stealth/athletics 3-4 and get the other skills on companions.

2005

Make sure everyone has at least one point in survival or they’ll tire very quickly. One point is all you need to go from normal/+0% fatigue to +50% fatigue, and everyone should have at least that, maybe even put a single levels worth of skill points into everyone to get them up to 3. You’ll end up with plenty of points by the end of the game to max everyone out in something, anyway. The only skills that need maxed out are Lore (for high level scrolls) and Mechanics, really. High Stealth is really handy - I try to get my entire party up to about a 3 or 4 in stealth and Athletics, regardless of their role.

2006

Wait, is stealth or mechanics for finding secret stuff? (Also, do y’all just go around in stealth mode, because that’s how you find stuff?) And is stealth good for things other than stealing? Can you backstab?

Is it typical to just dump all the points into one skill?

Do people like survival? Athletics?

Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it–I want to get this sorted out before I go deep into the game. (On the other hand, so far the game is good enough that I’ll probably be willing to play it twice.)

2007

neither, finding is perception, a base stat.

stealth allow you to hide better
mechanics allow you to open chests and disable traps

2008

What do you mean? I think Stealth just lets you get closer to an enemy without being detected. I think mechanics helps you find hidden stuff.

2009

For far something about Act III isn’t grabbing me like the first 2 acts - I went through most of Hearthsong and am getting ready to enter Elm’s Reach. Was this the weakest of the acts story wise? Does it start off weak and get better?

It could be that I’m tiring of going through multi map cities. It has always been one of my least favorite parts of these games and you spend a lot of time in Defiance Bay. It could just be city fatigue on my part.

2010

If you don’t have at least 3 points in Athletics, you will have MASSIVE stamina problems. It is the first thing i would get in all cases.

Survival seems like a good extra points skill.

All you really need is one person with mechanics, one person with lore and maybe one person with stealth. Everyone else just needs 3-4 points in athletics and a point or two in stealth. Beyond that, nothing really helps a ton so you can just dump in to survival to get longer lasting consumables.

2011

The blue highlighted containers are the normal ones you see with Tab; the purple ones I’ve only seen when in stealth mode. I don’t know if that’s just coincidence or not, but it sure seems like you can find some things only if you are in stealth mode. Whether the level of stealth matters or not I have no idea.

2012

FYI, it looks like the GOG patch hit about 4 hours ago. 1:30 or so EST.

Doesn’t look as if it fixed the issue w/ fencing in the mouse on the border of a dual screen config.

2013

Finding secrets (purple spots) and traps is based on mechanics, not perception or stealth.

Roll a 20 perception 0 mechanics char and try to find the hidden stuff on the first map if you want to test it.

2014

Are you sure about that? Afaik finding stuff is mechanics.

2015

Sure, but you have to be IN stealth mode to find traps and hidden stuff, which is what trips people up. Never enter stealth mode? Traps go boom and containers are bypassed. I use it non stop in new areas as a result, indoors and out.

2016

There is at least one Stealth dialog check.

2017

Yeah the problem is, it’s not sensitivity. Come on, you don’t seriously believe that most of the people who are making noise about this are genuinely upset about it do you? It’s a witch hunt mentality, herd mentality, hive mind. Same old same old, just with a modern-day, hokey pseudo-political schtick. It really has to stop, it’s getting totally absurd.

Put it this way, if it had been a few LGBT people complaining about it politely, I’d have been all in favour of Obsidian doing the polite thing in return. But because it’s just fascistic fervour in caring, sharing dressage, they’d have been better off taking a stand about it.

Reasonable people really need to take a stand about this sort of nonsense now. “First they came for the Socialists”, and all that … And if the SJWs keep getting away with it, eventually they will bowdlerize content, and we’ll be back in Victorian times, just with different doilies on different things.

But back to the game: playing on Path of the Damned, I’m finding the combat system really shines. All those little details that don’t matter so much on Normal, you have to pore over, and every pause requires taking stock of all options, finding the optimum series of abilities for the situation. All those scrolls that just stack up on Normal, you use them all. All the food and drink, every opportunity. Every point of everything counts. Great stuff.

I’ve taken the training wheels of “autopause on end of ability use” off and going “autopause on spell use” and manual pausing, now that I’ve got the hang of the system and its funny ways. Might go full manual soon. I think the autopausing helps while you’re learning, but manual pausing is more fun when you know what everything does, and definitely more reminiscent of the IE games. (I still think “autopause and stop on enemy sighting” is miles better than “autopause on combat initiation” though. It’s great to be able to manage encounters that way.)

Also, getting the feels - some of the stories are genuinely moving. Shed my first tear the other day, and still getting a few here and there.

Also, on my current playthrough as a more mercenary Rogue, it’s amazing how different the conversational experiences are, how the tone of the game responds to the tone of my character. I’m noticing conversations that simply didn’t appear on my previous playthrough as a goody two-shoes Chanter. They must have variations in the conversational paths depending on how you’re revealing your character (e.g. Stoic, etc.) through dialogue choices.

My big disappointment is simply that it’s way too short, I could happily play this game for weeks, just like I played BG2, but as it is it’s short but very sweet. I hope they make an expansion, or get some money to do a BG2-sized extravanganza.

Also, now that the lore is taking some shape in my mental fog, I’m starting to like it - better than the DA lore, I think.

2018

Short!? It took me 42 hours to complete the campaign and I played another 10 after that moving through the Endless Path and doing the first 2 sets of bounties (out of at least 4 sets I heard about). That’s… a lot of content. 42 hours is right around how long it took me to complete Dragon Age Inquisition, including defeating all the high dragons. And the budget on that was probably quite a bit bigger, and I’m not sure it’s nearly as replayable (based on my immensely enjoyable second play through of PoE, so far at least).

2019

OK, now I’m thinking about rolling up a wizard, with the Lore as the primary secondary stat (so to speak) and mechanics as the secondary-secondary, until I get a companion with mechanics. What primary stats do you need for wizardhood?

2020

Int and Might are pretty important - wider area of effect range (and AoE is the bread and butter of a Mage), and harder hitting spells within that AoE with a higher Might. Drop CON for a glass cannon, add PER/RES for conversation options (and some defensive boosts, much needed with a reduced CON).

2021

Sweet, just what I was looking for, thanks. When you say “drop”, how far do you recommend? (I know it was the fashion to drop charisma to 3 back in BG/BGII, but I never could bring myself to do it.)

2022

mispost.