1783

Motoring along now, done the Raedric’s castle quest and have my Stronghold, just about to start Endless path to see what that’s all about. I’ve got a full NPC party now (me Chanter, with the Fighter, Priest, Druid, Cipher and Wizard, also picked up the NPC Chanter and Ranger, but not using them atm). Chanter buff/debuff is pretty good, I think, and some of the other tricks are great - e.g. the cone knockback is superb, and the exploding worms are great for clearing a bunch of dangerous mobs that just have a pip of health, when you’re already knee deep in the slain. I also like how making up your “song book” is reminiscent of Vanguard Bards (best Bard in any game, by far).

Wizard is pretty powerful, just requires a bit of micro-management. Druid I’m finding less useful than I thought I would - lots of spells, yes, but a lot of them are highly situational (werewolf form is lots of fun though). Priest is indispensible for many things. Cipher is great for charming dangerous mobs and putting them to the side for a moment.

I think Normal is just fine. With Hard, it’s like XCOM - yeah, it’s harder, but at a certain point, having to either be ultra careful or re-do things makes me lose the sense of forward momentum. I like to have a good pace of discovering new sights and sounds and story in real time.

I’ve discovered that Autopause on end of ability use is pretty good. That way things mostly take care of themselves except for special abilities, and as soon as an ability is used (e.g. spell) I know that that character has to use something else special, so it’s min-maxing my time management (as continuous a stream of spells as possible).

Key is definitely to have a solid tank I think - I’m going to up the Defender no. of engagement targets to 5 soon as that’s available. With a solid tank, the others can position themselves to flank and do useful things. Alpha strikes from stealth with ranged weapons is also a fun thing for variety. Since my main has high mechanics and has been trap monkey I’ve collected a bunch of traps, so I think I’ll start playing around with that tactic for variety too. But tank and spank is the tried and trusted formula.

Food and drink are the equivalent of pre-buff, I feel, you get quite reasonable bonuses from them just before a fight -food for attributes, drink for extra bit of DR. And the food lasts for any long, difficult fight.

I rather like the way the camping mechanic works now. It’s a bit annoying when you’re weedy, but as you get more powerful, it makes more sense - how far do you go before using your limited resting resource? It’s a nice choice/consequence thing when most encounters only take you down a little bit in health, and you accumulate some loss of health as you do more encounters. Yet at the same time it doesn’t have that artificial rest spam feel, it feels like an rp-like rest.

Anyway, in the saddle now, and tons of fun, very absorbing inna traditional BG stylee.

1784

I’d really like to set different, custom autopause modes. For general exploring and trash mobs, I basically have autopause on sighting enemy, finding secret and finding trap. That’s it. But for a really tough fight, I’d prefer additional triggers so that I can maximise available time during battle. I can of course turn all these on and off manually, but having different custom settings would be ideal.

1785

Oh forgot to say, as well as Autopause at end of ability use, I’ve also got Autopause and group stop on sighting enemy mobs. The range for sighting being slightly above range of aggro, you can stealth around (on fast speed it’s about the same as walking normally), then as soon as someone sights mobs your group stops. Don’t need to have autopause on combat that way. (You don’t have to use stealth with this either, but it’s particularly handy for when you do.)

1786

Possible Quest Spoiler? Act 1

In the Compass region, you come across the body and scattered letters of Fulvano the Adventurer. I’m a brain-addled completionist, so part of me wants to follow the vague clues in all his letters and collect his brick-a-brack (already got the gloves when I went back to the Valewood and used a grappling hook to mount the crumbled structure to the southeast). But, if it’s just gonna net me a bunch of subpar items and a minute sense of self-satisfaction, I’m a lot less amped about the idea, especially given my very limited playtime right now.

1787

I guess no one knows. An unrelated question: does anyone know what creatures are primordial, vessels, spirits, and so on? It would be useful when deciding on which slaying enchantment to add to a nice weapon.

1788

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Creature

1789

It does put something there. Should show up as Ancient Memory.

Also, in the encyclopedia section of your Journal, there’s a Bestiary. As you slay creatures more, you learn more about them, including, presumably, their type.

1790

-Todd

1791

I’d expect modders will make some of those. Probably unintentionally.

1792

Right, I can see that on Kana’s character sheet. But does an effect icon appear next to party member portraits when it’s active? Because I don’t have that.

1793

Great, thanks. That’s the sort of list I was looking for but not finding. Primodial and beast don’t look that useful, except when you need to down a dragon. The rest all seem pretty good.

1794

I don’t think we’ll see many mods for this game, as making the 2D backdrops is supposed to be quite challenging. It isn’t NWN.

1795

As far as I can tell your assessment is correct, but my party is making use of 3 of the items. They’re not extraordinary, but useful.

1796

I have 30 hours in the game but that is spread across 6 games. My highest party is a Ranger main at level 5. Have a couple of Paladin builds, a Druid and a Rogue. I think the Ranger is weak compared to the Rogue, but I like him anyway because of the pet. I also love guns and so does my Ranger.

Messed around with a couple of different Paladin tank builds. So many ways to go there, just in terms of tanking, let alone other roles for the Paladin. On a related topic I understand Fighters being the ‘best’ tanks but Defender is really OP when it comes to being a tank. None of the other 10 classes have anything like that and I think that should change. One of the nice things about a tank build PC is that PER/RES are so prevalent in dialogue choices.

Rogue is great fun but I stopped because I hit the double-click gear/wipe passive bug so I shelved him.

Druid PC is incredibly versatile but I steered away from him because of the Companion Druid, who I like.

Created Cipher/Barb/Rogue adventurer/hirelings in those various games and was happy with all of them. Ciphers in particular feel like easy mode. They have some great spells and they are all pretty much 1-2x per level/per encounter because of the way focus works.

1797

I must play this much slower than most of you guys. I’m guessing I’ve played 25-30 hours and I only recently started Act II.

One of my least favorite things in RPGs is roaming around large cities. For some reason I just don’t like going from building to building looking for someone worthwhile to visit. I rather have them all in one room somewhere. It’s funny, because I like the dialog, I just don’t like searching for those who have something to say.

How do you approach Defiance Bay? Do you let quests guide you to your locations, or do you go building to building, visiting them all? When you first get there, there are 2 locations that are part of existing quests. Do you head right for them? My compulsiveness wants me to visit everywhere.

1798

When you first take on a Chanter, the game doesn’t do a super job about giving you a heads-up about what you need to be looking for, if I remember correctly. I was baffled until I took my new Chanter through a couple of dry runs and did a lot of pausing and looking. Guess I’d never really used bards or bardlike characters much in the past, or it’d been a while.

Anyway first of all, when his Chant button is highlighted and blinking, that means he’s, well, chanting. When he reaches a phrase, the effects show up next to party member portraits and a corresponding numerical icon appears in the lower right corner of the Chanter’s portrait indicating which phrase he has reached in that particular chant. The chanting stops when the Chanter does takes any other action other than moving (I think) and probably also when he’s attacked.

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Edit: I think they should have added a Chanter “active spell/ability” icon like the one shown above the character heads here:

1799

I went back to read his letters, which were all in my general party stash. Three letters stack, and when you separate them, they all ready exactly the same. I know they weren’t the same when I picked them up. Another small bug I guess.

1800

I’m visiting everywhere but I found that it’s not always the best way because some of the places you visit will be referenced in the main quest and your choices there, while you were NOT questing, can interfere with choices when you are. The undead district in Defiance Bay is the best example, I’d stay out of it until I got the quest to go there if I could re-do it.

Still gonna explore everything but might do a few main quests from time to time :)

Also, I’ve found that almost every building has something worthwhile in it in the city.

1801

I don’t think it ever stops.

1802

Yeah, I haven’t noticed it stop when I auto attack, for instance.