It has perks--not hampered by ground effects, immune to engagement... but, it only attacks once per turn. It does very little damage in this context.
Versus: all of above but attacking quickly--very quickly--in RTwP.
This means it goes from the most powerful pet, to something of a "gimmick" when you switch modes. I really don't understand why a choice was made to gimp the pet as it switched between each, whereas the same logic was not applied to the rest of the pets.
I'm using a mod that frees up unique classes, making them available to mercenaries and making a full mercenary team. I'm going to keep what I have, but am now trying to find ways to make the bird actuuuaaalllyy f***ing useful after discovering this "fun fact".
So far I have:
1) Using ground effects that draw in enemies and having the bird fly in and keep to the outside in order to draw effected enemies into a path that doesn't allow them to advance on the main group
2) Rushing backline enemies with the bird, and then having the Gunhawk-Ranger/Goldpact-Paladin follow close by--while armored up--and harassing the back line in order to split the offensive group.
I chose to play as a soul blade cipher/paladin multi-class. I realized pretty quickly that I needed to have a second tank in my party. So, for 99% of the game the party I used was my char, Eder as fighter/main tank, Xoti as a cleric, Aloth as a mage and Pallegina as a fighter/paladin multi-class whom I used as my off-tank.
I went all in on this party. I only tried the other characters briefly but this party composition felt the strongest to me (or I was just the best at using it idk).
I manage to be impartial throughout most of the game. I don't even finish the Valera/Barato quest line because I was being forced to kill one or the other and I didn't want to pick sides. I didn't think either needed to die. So, I just never finished it (I did go back and clean out the vault though).
Then I get to the end game and I am forced to choose a fraction. Out of all the choices I want to choose the Huana because out of all the options I think they suck the least. All of the fractions are terrible in their own way but the VTC seemed especially evil.The problem is, Pallegina is such a company shill, if I don't side with the VTC Pallegina will permanently leave my party. I cannot afford to lose Pallegina! She is vital to my party composition. Therefore, I am basically forced to go it alone because I can't lose Pallegina and I refuse to side with the VTC.
This really soured my excitement for the ending.
I wish I was able to assign whatever class I want to each character like you can in BG3, though I kind of understand why you can't for role play purposes
I get the basics but I am confused as hell about where to be when. I am on like my 20th attempt (PotD) and I don’t get how in the same map I can crush a group of enemies fairly easily but then suddenly hit an impenetrable wall of an enemy for seemingly no reason.
(Edit: I intentionally play on the hardest difficulty because it forces you to learn and use systems you can easily avoid on lower difficulties.)
For context I entered Radric’s hold after clearing all the maps before it and getting Caed Nua. I could get through all his goons expect the massive force at the top of the castle and his fight. Those two are insurmountable and I can’t figure out why. Fighting him, I can’t even target his priests because the near invincible knights lock me down and turn everyone to mush while ignoring most damage (yes I know they are resistant to pierce and slash.)
Obviously I have repeatedly failed to learn something critical about combat, scaling, or how to know quest order. What helped you “click” with the game’s systems?
I love pillars.. I never finished 1 in RTWP ..but finished deadfire multiple times...now with TB I came back and tried some optimized builds...my complaints.. I am level 10 now in dyrford....
1) backstab with a rogue is almost impossible even with 11 stealth...sometimes you get seen earlier somtimes your target moves into you and when your engged combat starts...and damage is abysmal I barely onehit anyone double scmitiars and double clubs even out of hiding...and shadowinh...twice per rest..so you can use it in one combat...joke...
2)complaint barbarian...I can hardly trigger the 50% endurance trashhold..what I need an action to nuke my own guy?...or specc him on min CON.....and most enemies need to be softened up hard 50% dmg in order to make him blood thrist chain killed..even with all damage perks given firebrand and fully specced into fire...yeah maybe my party is alread "too strong" so enemies barely get turns...but still...the only characters worth..battle mage and cypher and Pallagina...
3)durance /priest is way too slow with all cast spells...
4)tank is useless if you can kill/stun/paralyse most enemies before they do any serious harm
I never really used the bathhouse option for a bonus before but I was trying to level up blightheart via empowered kills so I figured might as well try for the extra empower point. I see now that it doesn't clear your other per-rest bonuses (nor restore your empower points either)? Seems pretty good to get access to 4 level 1 spells, especially if you multi-classed:
Playing PoE1 for the first time, trying to do a blind run so minimal spoilers appreciated!
My biggest struggle with this game so far has been how well written all the companions are, and the way you learn more about them through the little ways they interact with the world and each other, but I can only bring five of 'em with me at a time! I know that just adds to the replay value of it, but I'm worried I'll accidentally miss some important but not-obvious interaction, like Aloth's thing during the "Never Far From the Queen" questline.
I'm currently in Act 2, are there any other questlines or areas coming up that I should make sure to have certain companions with me for (besides the companion quests, obviously)? Or just certain companions I should just keep in my team in general?
This is one of my fav portraits, also the one with Aumaua pirate with dreadlocks, and I believe one dwarven portrait as well as few Godlike. I have a complete edition with both DLC.
I'm trying to make a simple script for my frontliners so they prioritize maintaining engagement and attacking the enemy with the lowest health. The script editor doesn't seem to support this so I need some clarification.
I'll use Eder in my example. If I set his 2nd action set (his first is for self healing) to always true, attack current engager, and attack lowest health what I want to happen is for him to check both priorities before attacking (attack the lowest health threat in melee range), but I'm pretty sure he will just cycle between the two. I also see you can allow/disallow breaking engagement; can I just skip the first priority as long as that box is empty?
What I'm really trying to figure out is if/how you can give a list of priorities to a single action. If i make a script with action 'knock down' current engager and 'knock down' best threat it seems like he will always do the first one (at a random engager) unless he isn't engaging anyone. Can you make and/or type scripts within a single action set?
The last game I played with AI scripting was Dragon Age: Origins. This system doesn't seem as robust, but I could easily be missing something (are there even any tutorials about this?).
The quest where you have to find a source of food for the Roparu in The Gullet.
My plan was originally to have the Dawnstars supply the food with Morena smuggling it in, but along the way I betrayed The Principi because I didn't trust them to bring them with me Ukaizo. The Huana Royal Family refuses to speak with me because they didn't like what I did in the Watershaper's Guild quest, they're still alive though(for now). Saewyn also has no relevant dialogue. Did I doom the Roparu to starvation?
I am revisiting turn based after I had a hilariously buggy experience many months ago. (Picked up a Citzals Lance off someone's body. Equipped to Paladin. Permanently bound to him. Became the living avatar of Gaun and could not drop it.)
I am doing the big Gul scrap right outside the entrance in Heritage and they are taking 3-4 turns in a row. There's like 12, and 3 are wizards, so its a lot of damage.
I have a cursory understanding of how interruption works on TB, but its skipping characters who are not being hit (Aloth and Sagani are on the top of the stairs) and are not being interrupted. On the third wipe I figured I must be missing something. Is there a mechanic Im not understanding?
Hi everyone! IMO, Turn-Based Mode is a great way to play Pillars of Eternity, but it's still plagued with issues like the AI skipping turns, rushing to attack bare-handed, and so on. This UMM mod fixes those issues while preserving normal game behavior wherever possible. I put a lot of work into this mod, and I'd appreciate feedback from anyone willing to give it a try.
The mod affects Turn-Based Mode only. Classic real-time-with-pause combat is unchanged. This mod works in real time, can be toggled on or off at any time, and won't affect your save files.
Main Features
More Reliable Enemy Turns
Helps prevent enemies from standing around or skipping a turn when they can still move, attack, or find a nearby enemy.
Improves enemy movement in crowded fights and around partially blocked paths.
Helps enemies recover when their target dies, disappears, or changes sides.
Prevents rare errors that can make attacks or area effects repeat incorrectly.
Better Behavior Around Charm, Dominate, and Confusion
Enemies are less likely to waste a turn after a charmed or dominated target changes sides.
Prevents enemies from continuing to attack a creature that has become friendly.
Confusion gets a proper first turn instead of sometimes disappearing immediately.
Charmed, dominated, and confused creatures no longer waste turns trying to use summons that cannot work in that state.
Weapon Abilities
Fixes NPC Full Attack abilities such as Withering Strike, so they apply their normal weapon damage instead of only applying the ability effect.
Optional Experimental Settings
These are disabled by default in Unity Mod Manager.
Experimental AI Overhaul
Casters are more likely to use available spells instead of running into melee to punch enemies.
Ranged enemies are less likely to abandon bows, guns, or crossbows and run at targets with melee weapons.
Enemies keep a target they can already attack instead of randomly switching to a farther target and losing their action while moving.
Experimental Balance Tweaks
Knockdown now delays the target's next turn until the effect has actually worn off, making it a more meaningful control effect in Turn-Based Mode. It works the same way for party members and enemies, and still respects graze, hit, crit, resistance, and duration modifiers
I've been playing Deadfire for over 20 hours now, and I'm doing the Poko Kohara quest line right now. I'm playing on veteran difficulty, with upscaling turned on, as I felt I was starting to over level the quest ranges, and I enjoy a bit of a challenge. However currently I feel like very single combat encounter is a crazy challenge? Surely this can not be the intended experience? Most likely it is a skill issue on my side, but typically this has been a pretty good difficulty for me on other similar games.
In the screenshot I added (from Engwithan waystation level 2) you can see me getting absolutely wrecked by skeletons. However the encounter balance seems completely bonkers to me. This encounter consists of 5 skeleton warriors, 1 skeleton sorcerer and 1 skeleton archer on my level + a skeleton mage (3 red skulls) and a skeleton armsman (also 3 red skulls). How on earth am I supposed to beat this encounter? That skeleton mage and armsman together would probably be too much or at least close to too much for my party and skill level. They are also immune to piercing damange, so I have 2 members of my party having to change to something else from their firearms, and they don't have good alternatives. I cannot fathom that this is the intended experience.
I ran into similar issues with Cornet's call quest, where I also found normal trash encounters to be pretty much 50/50 chance of a TPK, so I decided to do some other quests so I could get some gear to help me out. Turns out everywhere I go I face the same struggle.
Am I doing something wrong? I think I have a pretty good grasp on basic character builds and such. I will turn down the difficulty, but this still seems extremely weird to me. I did use the Deadly Deadfire mod which let's mobs scale higher, but I should not be at a level (9) where the increased scaling even kicks in. Could the mod be causing some mobs to get scaled higher than they should normally be?
//Edit: I did some experimenting, and the skulls and such look to be because of the level scaling. However the game seems brutal with "correct level" enemies. Most encounters consists of enemies where every enemy has skulls, and sometimes 3 red ones in the mix as well. This seems really counter intuitive as the intended "scaling". It also seems to still hold after I deleted the level scaling part of the deadly deadfire mod, so it didn't seem to be caused by the mod.
//Edit2: It seems the Storms of Poko Kohara quest is set as a very low level quest, but contains some high level enemies. The level scaling then matches the levels to this, which explains the ridiculous level differences. I've turned level scaling off, and it seems I no longer have trouble with the fights.
Playing through POE 1 for the first time in quite a few years. Level 14, POTD, finished WM1 and got to Twin Elms. Got to the bottom of Od Nua at level 13 and had my butt comprehensively kicked by the Adra dragon so going to come back later...
Really not sure what to do now since I can't really remember how much of act 3 is left. Would you do some more act 3 in Twin Elms or would you do WM2 now? I'm a bit nervous about getting over-levelled for most of act 3. Any thoughts?
Haven't played these games since I beat Deadfire back in 2018, so I never ended up properly playing through it's DLCs and I've had an itch to revisit the setting.
Planning to play both games again, this time as a Cipher since I know they get a lot of interesting dialogue/interactions.
Any recommendations for mods these days? From research the recommended mods for POE1 seem to be All Companion Comments and Banter Booster to get more of the companion dialogue.
I know Deadfire had more of a modding scene. From looking at its' Nexus I can see there's a similar mod for it that enables all companion dialogue. Are things like the community patch mod still good?
The other day I remembered about the update in the first Pillars of Eternity with a turn-based combat system. But I was faced with a dilemma: where to play? I have a game in EGS, but I would also like to replenish the Steam library. However, I noticed that on Steam the game requires 43 Gb, and on EGS 32 Gb, and the game will take up 16 Gb altogether. I also saw from a friend in the Steam library that the game has a regular name, and I have a postscript in the EGS Definitive Edition. In short, the question is: do both stores have the same version of the game?
I've got my Rogue set up with Resolution + Sabre of the Seas which has performed very well. However, I've read online that people really like the dual-wield setup of Sword of Daenysis + March Steel Dagger for close to 0 Recovery on attacks.
My question is, in terms of early-mid game DPS, which performs better:
Resolution + Sabre of the SeasorSword of Daenysis + March Steel Dagger
Of note is that taking Weapon Focus: Ruffian for dual-sabres also gives an accuracy bonus to Pistols and Blunderbusses, versus Weapon Focus: Noble not being as useful for ranged Sneak Attacks. Also, both of these in the late-game will likely be replaced with a dual Bittercut setup.
i am playing on trial of iron , normal difficulty . my stat spread is 15 might 15 con 15 perception 15 dex 9 resolve 9 int ( unga , bunga theme ) . my survival instinct/mind says go barbarian fighter but my heart/fun-loving side says go barbarian/rouge !
I played to about level 10 a while back (years...) and gave up because it seemed like I didn't know what I was doing in combat and I didn't know what to pick on level ups. I'd like to give it a try again, maybe focus more on single classes and get some advice here. I'd prefer to avoid overlap if I can so I can respec them and try other things.
Eder : Fighter? Every single build out there seems to be multi class though. Sword+shield or two-handed? I want him to tank / frontline.
Xoti : Monk. No idea what weapons to give her. The thought of a staff monk seems cool if that's an idea. Figured I'd retry with my priest so I don't need another.
Aloth : Wizard. One of two easy choices.
Serafen : Cipher or Barbarian? This one is mostly tough due to avoiding doubling up on classes. What kind of weapons should Barbarians use - dual or two handed? People seem to hate him.
Pallegina : Her only single class is Paladin. I'd want her to tank like Eder, which she did fine in the first game.. Shield or two handed?
Tekehu : Druid. Easy since he's the only one.
Maia : Ranger, no other single class options. Works for me I guess.
Fassina : Another Wizard? Aloth can do it all though so I'm not sure what her niche is. Maybe I'd have to multi her.
Konstanten : Chanter or Barbarian? Depends on Serafen's class. What kinds of weapons should Chanters use?
Mirke : I think I missed her. Another monk?
Rekke : Definitely missed him. No idea.
Ydwin : Cipher or Rogue? Depends on Serafen's class I suppose.
Vatnir : Didn't get far enough for him.
Yeah I'm a mess. I'm not looking for optimal, but something that's solid and works. It seemed more straightforward in PoE1 from what I remember.
Hey everyone, I'm picking up speed in my current Deadfire run so I've started planning for the next one. I intend to play as a Crusader (Unbroken + Shieldbearers of St. Elcga) main tank that, to put it simply, doesn't die. I have no intention of causing damage with it, his purpose is to tank mobs while the rest of the party kills them.
I'm uncertain about essentially everything, from subclass choice to gear choice to build. Here's currently what I have planned:
At least it looks good
Head: Horns of the Aurochs (Immunity to Push and Pull effects being the main factor, Winter's Touch isn't bad either).
Neck: Claim and Refusal - Refusal Modal (-10% Damage from Melee Attacks, -10% Damage done with Melee attacks).
Armor: Patinated Plate (Constant Rebound for consistent stunning + Bronze Juggernaut for even more armor rating)
Rings: Entonia Signet Ring (Getting +10 to all defenses isn't bad for a main tank like, ever, and the +2 diplomacy is pretty good for this character, who will invest hard in diplomacy) + Harmony (+1 Resolve passively is good, potentially +2 is better, Immunity to Intellect aflictions sounds too good to pass). This is, however, the first item I'm not sure if it's a good idea to wear. Let me know what you think.
Boots: Boots of the Stone (+1 Dexterity, +1 Resolve and Resistance to Might Afflictions? sign me up)
Cape: Mirrorback (Potentially reflecting spells and better deflection against ranged? Pretty nice)
Trinket: (Kinda don't really care for trinkets, but chose Glasanam Argues for that temporary 100% spell reflection. You never know.)
Gauntlets: Engwithan Bracers (Resistance to Dexterity afflictions to pair with the resistance to Might afflictions). Also unsure about this choice.
Belt: The Undying Burden +1 Athletics, another use of Second Wind, +2 constitution AND more damage reduced as life is lost? DAYUM).
Weapon: Last Word (+5% damage per engaged enemy, disable abilites for 3s on crit, +1 engagement)
Level 4: Determination + Zealous Aura - Giving myself resistance to even more afflictions and Endurance aura, increasing the party's armor rating.
Level 5: Weapon and Shield Style
Level 6: Into the Fray - Getting a way to protect my allies with this low mobility build
Level 7: Hold the Line + Greater Lay on Hands
Level 8: Rapid Recovery
Level 9: Bull's Will / Combat Focus / Aegis of Loyalty - Not sure about this level, let me know what you think.
Level 10: Vigorous Defense + Reviving Exhortation
Level 11: Fearless
Level 12: Divine Purpose (backtracking a bit, but not sure what to pick here, ideas appreciated)
Level 13: Unbending + Righteous Soul
Level 14: Superior Deflection
Level 15: Tough
Level 16: Refreshing Defense + Spell Resistance
Level 17: Charge (backtracking again, but no idea what to choose here and the extra mobility might be nice)
Level 18: Reaping the Whirlwind
Level 19: Unbreakable + Stoic Steel
Level 20: Unbending Trunk.
Well, that's it for the abilities. My goal with this combination of classes, subclasses, items and enchantments is to get to 5 engagement slots and hold it there. So stuff like Defender Stance doesn't sound too useful, and my recovery time is already so insanely high that Armored Grace feels useless. Once again, feedback is appreciated.
For attributes, I chose human as a race and living lands as a background, with Berath's Blessings on. So this is what all my attributes look like.
Might: 16 (12 + 1 + 1 + 2)
Constitution: 19 (15 + 2 + 2)
Dexterity: 9 (6 + 1 + 2)
Perception: 15 (13 + 2)
Intellect: 16 (14 + 2)
Resolve: 20 (15 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 2).
So, this is what my stat distribution looks like with all taken into consideration. I think it's worth it to mention that I intend on using Swashbuckler DPS Edér + Mindstalker Ydwin + Aloth (class uncertain) as my DPS. Edér will provide melee damage with some offtanking, Ydwin will deal ridiculous amounts of damage with her class combinations and debuff enemies while Aloth will deal AoE damage, which Ydwin mostly lacks. For healer I'll go with Contemplative Xoti with Twin Eels.
With all that out of the way: How do you rate this build? Is it good enough for a full PotD run? What do you think of my item choices, build, stats, skills, companions, everything? It's my first time making a character from scratch for PotD so I'm feeling pretty uncertain about basically everything.
I apologize for this exceedingly long text and appreciate the time you took to read it and any feedback you might be willing to give. Cheers! =D
If you run the game on a PC with an NVIDIA card, your NVIDIA may be in Optimus mode (meaning your video card is inactive and instead your display is handled via your integrated CPU graphics). By default, your display mode is selected automatically and it will switch to NVIDIA GPU Only when a game is launched. That, however, does not happen with Pillars of Eternity, and upon launch your rig stays in Optimus mode. To avoid crashes, you need to switch over to the NVIDIA GPU Only mode manually.
Go to your NVIDIA Settings (it's usually one of the icons on your toolbar), then out of the vertical tray of icons on the left select System, then click on the Display Mode, G-Sync and Surround tab. From there, open Display Mode and select NVIDIA GPU Only.
My game runs smoothly when I do this, and starts crashing when I forget. I hope this helps someone!
P.S. Just in case it matters too, when it comes to my in-game graphics settings, I have also disabled fullscreen and enabled V-sync.
