the only really infuriating fight I had was early in chapter 2
the second raedric fight. the enemies in that fight were stupid as hell, plus his auras on top of it where you had to keep protection from fear up at ALL TIMES and he would make your party explode in fireballs. the minions he had took so much damage to kill and they would run straight for your mages.
For all this talk about expert options, I might be alone in wanting easy mode to be, you know, easier.
Mainly since I'm buying Obsidian games for the writing, not the combat.
Also, the collector's edition is freakin' huge.
What are you having trouble with? I find the combat to be pretty rewarding but I like the pause n play style. It can be difficult, but on Hard I haven't found any outright brick walls.
Best thing I've found is not to engage in open spaces. Find nice tactical locations where you can funnel enemies to your tanks and through your AoE spells.
And sometimes, just run away. You'll find stuff that is too hard, so come back a little later or find ways to avoid a fight.
I've gotten better at combat after a very discouraging start, mainly by turning every auto-pause option on and avoiding pretty much every non-mandatory fight until I was able to recruit some party members.
Mainly I'm just not that interested in combat, period.
I have to say, I'm really unimpressed with the higher level Cipher spells. Meanwhile, Wizard spells get amazing. Why yes I would like to make all enemies in a huge AoE Prone for 15+ seconds.
Ciphers get a nearly always on +40% attack damage modifier. Their powers SHOULD be weaker than those of dedicated casters. That they are largely better than Wizards and Priests at low levels is, as I see it, a design error.
"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence
the one thing I don't like about combat is how it doesn't feel broken down into rounds like D&D systems were. so I have to spam pause if I want to cast a lot of spells and it makes it feel more chaotic
Just turn on "auto pause after ability used". That's what I've had on since the beginning, and it makes it far easier to be sure my guys are always doing something useful. Though melee is a little tougher since sometimes they'll get caught up in engagement and not reach the target you assigned them.
I wish there was at least some level of AI in this so I could tell me fighters and paladins to just always use their encounter abilities on whoever they're hitting until they run out.
high level ciphers get a foe-only AOE prone + ~50 crush damage, and they have enough focus to use it twice right off the bat
this ability trivialized most encounters on hard outside of the boss fights
the other stuff wasn't amazing but i think they get reasonably good sources of raw damage which ends up being very useful indeed (and it might test against will, which is good to have - most attack spells test fort/reflex)
Cyphers have that high level spell that is like a viral charm spell. It makes fights rather chaotic with the shifting allegiances so it's not something you want to use often, but for big hard fights it's almost a guaranteed win.
that being said wizards status spells are absolutely broken so its hard to say ciphers are better than them
why does petrify cause enemies to take 4x damage? :iiam: *petrifies final boss, gibs them in two seconds*
Shameful pursuits and utterly stupid opinions
0
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Wizards are way better for big tough fights, Ciphers are better for the dungeon leading up to the big tough fight because their spells have no daily limit.
in BG2 you didn't need aoe areas because 1) spells usually had pretty clearly defined areas that never changed(a fire ball explodes to here) 2) you had ways to work around friendly fire with various protection spells that don't exist in this game 3) the number of aoe spells was a lot smaller, as a druid I have like 20 aoe spells that will all hit my party. I can't memorize that many aoe markers and how much they increase by int, that's an unreasonable request. how many single target spells are there? like two total? 4) mages are a lot more damage oriented in this game, in BG you could have your mage focus solely on debuffing and summons and they were better than damage mages because you didn't need mage damage. in this game you have highly damage resistant foes that you need magic damage for
making aoe markers part of expert mode ensured that I will never, never play expert mode unless I'm doing it without any sort of mage or druid at all.
Actually in this game, mages seem to be super oriented toward debuffs, knockdowns, blind, paralysis etc. At least Aloth is set up that way, but really, all the best mage spells are about control. Druid is more for damage.
Yeah, Aloth spends all his time spamming slicken/blind/vulnerability for me. Only have up to level 4 spells though, so maybe he gets some major nukes later.
0
GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
That one 3d level wizard spell. Expose Weakness, I think it's called. Substantially better than Fireball. Have Aloth cast it to start a big tough fight and use single target damage dealers to focus down the debuffed guys. They melt.
I'm not really happy with the way the stronghold works.
Some stuff happens in it via the passage of time, like sleeping or wandering all over the world. And other stuff happens in it via turns, which happen every time you finish a quest, I believe. That means there are a limited number of turns in the game, eventually those turn events will stop happening.
You collect taxes on turns, not every turn, maybe every other turn. And you can collect more taxes based on the prestige level of your stronghold. However, the guards you've hired to protect your coffers during tax collection are paid every week.
So if you spend a lot of time in-game going around traveling, making small progress on quests here and there, fighting, resting, you might end up paying your guards multiple times between getting any money out of the stronghold. Just a drain on funds for no reason. And someday when you run out of quests but want to keep spending time in the world, the guards will be useless and should be ditched.
Even early in the game it might actually be worthwhile to fire all your guards and go out exploring, getting quests up to the very last step before completion, then hire a bunch of guards and turn all the quests in at once, triggering a bunch of turns right away.
I get that logically it makes sense for guards to be paid weekly, but then, it doesn't make any sense that you would go collect taxes multiple times in the same day. They should all be operating on the same time system. And I understand that if taxes were collected based on the passage of time, players would cheese this and travel from one side of the map to the other to rack up money...essentially I think the guards should be paid on turns as well.
Besides that, there's other weirdness too...I think events that let you deal with prisoners happen on turns, but prisoners can escape at any time, based on the passage of time. So it's possible to capture a prisoner and lose them before you even have a chance to do anything with them. I just had that happen to me.
Also, given that:
a) there are a limited number of turns in the game
b) you earn more money per payday turn with more prestige
c) you gain prestige by restoring stronghold buildings, which costs money and time
If you want to get the most money out of the stronghold, the best thing to do is to unlock it and then complete no quests for a very long time, just go around getting as much money as you can, do the Endless Paths of Od Nua, etc. Pay for a stronghold upgrade and wander the map back and forth until it completes, pay for the next one, keep doing that until you've gotten as much prestige as possible. Then you hire guards and start questing again.
that makes a lot of sense
the stronghold really lacks. . . personality, is i guess how I'd put it. It doesn't feel like a place and I never really cared about it.
Obsidian producer-magician BAdler posted some very interesting news on the Obsidian forums:
Hey, everyone.
We couldn't be more happy about the success of Pillars of Eternity. You guys have been great with your feedback and support! Again, thank you very much.
We've been working hard on fixing bugs and stabilizing the game for 32-bit users. The 1.02 patch will be released shortly – hopefully before the weekend.
As a token of our gratitude for your past and ongoing support, we wanted to share some exciting new things we have in store for Pillars of Eternity. These features are scheduled to appear in the 1.10 update, which is currently slated for early summer.
First off, the big one: We are introducing turn-based combat. There will be a toggle for this at the start of the game, just next to Expert and Trial of Iron. This feature is very much the work of Tim Cain, and it makes Pillars of Eternity play a lot like the RPG classic The Temple of Elemental Evil.
Second, this will require an overhaul of the attributes system. We were never really one hundred percent happy with the current incarnation of the attributes, and this will give us the chance to balance it further while also introducing two new stats: Initiative and Action Points. These two stats are only available when playing in turn-based mode.
We are excited to share more details on this in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!
I suppose it doesn't come as a complete surprise. After all, this is what Tim Cain said to mindx2 in our Codex PAX East interview:
Tim: I love turn-based games. This actually goes back to something Chris was saying, when I worked on South Park… right when I arrived there it was a real-time game and one of the things I was asked was to make it turn-based. It’s easy to turn real-time systems into turn-based ones, so I’m just throwing that out there [as he looks towards the other team members].
[laughter]
Tim: I’m familiar with a lot of these systems in Pillars and how to convert them. Again I’m just saying that…
I'm not really happy with the way the stronghold works.
Some stuff happens in it via the passage of time, like sleeping or wandering all over the world. And other stuff happens in it via turns, which happen every time you finish a quest, I believe. That means there are a limited number of turns in the game, eventually those turn events will stop happening.
You collect taxes on turns, not every turn, maybe every other turn. And you can collect more taxes based on the prestige level of your stronghold. However, the guards you've hired to protect your coffers during tax collection are paid every week.
So if you spend a lot of time in-game going around traveling, making small progress on quests here and there, fighting, resting, you might end up paying your guards multiple times between getting any money out of the stronghold. Just a drain on funds for no reason. And someday when you run out of quests but want to keep spending time in the world, the guards will be useless and should be ditched.
Even early in the game it might actually be worthwhile to fire all your guards and go out exploring, getting quests up to the very last step before completion, then hire a bunch of guards and turn all the quests in at once, triggering a bunch of turns right away.
I get that logically it makes sense for guards to be paid weekly, but then, it doesn't make any sense that you would go collect taxes multiple times in the same day. They should all be operating on the same time system. And I understand that if taxes were collected based on the passage of time, players would cheese this and travel from one side of the map to the other to rack up money...essentially I think the guards should be paid on turns as well.
Besides that, there's other weirdness too...I think events that let you deal with prisoners happen on turns, but prisoners can escape at any time, based on the passage of time. So it's possible to capture a prisoner and lose them before you even have a chance to do anything with them. I just had that happen to me.
Also, given that:
a) there are a limited number of turns in the game
b) you earn more money per payday turn with more prestige
c) you gain prestige by restoring stronghold buildings, which costs money and time
If you want to get the most money out of the stronghold, the best thing to do is to unlock it and then complete no quests for a very long time, just go around getting as much money as you can, do the Endless Paths of Od Nua, etc. Pay for a stronghold upgrade and wander the map back and forth until it completes, pay for the next one, keep doing that until you've gotten as much prestige as possible. Then you hire guards and start questing again.
Weird, weird system.
I'm not really a fan of the stronghold but the reason you don't get paid based on the passage of time is that some people would consider that an exploit because you could just rest and make money.
that makes a lot of sense
the stronghold really lacks. . . personality, is i guess how I'd put it. It doesn't feel like a place and I never really cared about it.
I think they restricted themselves too much by thinking they had to make it near completly optional because some people didn't like the idea.
that makes a lot of sense
the stronghold really lacks. . . personality, is i guess how I'd put it. It doesn't feel like a place and I never really cared about it.
I think they restricted themselves too much by thinking they had to make it near completly optional because some people didn't like the idea.
Even then, it's a lot better than DA:I's, IMO. Feels like I have a lot more options and things to do with it, even if none of them are strictly necessary.
I'm not really a fan of the stronghold but the reason you don't get paid based on the passage of time is that some people would consider that an exploit because you could just rest and make money.
Yeah, I addressed that in the post. Given the choice I would solve all stronghold issues by making everything to do with it turn-based. Stronghold upgrades happen on turns, taxes are collected on turns, guards are paid on turns, prisoners escape or are ransomed on turns, etc.
That would make it more strategic too. You couldn't inflate your prestige with enough money and resting like you can now, instead you would have to decide which thing to upgrade next, knowing that it will affect how much taxes you get on future turns. Prestige first, or security, or a balance?
Can't wait for the expansions and especially PoEII (If they decide to work from this base and just focus on content/system improvements/encounter design)
that makes a lot of sense
the stronghold really lacks. . . personality, is i guess how I'd put it. It doesn't feel like a place and I never really cared about it.
I think they restricted themselves too much by thinking they had to make it near completly optional because some people didn't like the idea.
Even then, it's a lot better than DA:I's, IMO. Feels like I have a lot more options and things to do with it, even if none of them are strictly necessary.
They feel like sketches for a bigger idea in both games. I found the Dragon Age one better in that it did a better job functioning as a central hub. I think the decision to automatically split up the party and give them unique interaction in the stronghold helped a lot to make it feel like a central part of the game, even if the upgrades and NPCs felt very limited. Having events like the judgements also helped make it feel like your center of power.
In Pillars, and to a lesser extent Dragon Age, I think a lot could be done simply by making the NPC around the castle, with unique locations and NPCS with unique names and dialogue. You should be able to do quests for shopkeepers, opening up better stocks by finding new sources for supply or finding skilled craftsmen to join you. I'd like to hire more named guards and have a reason to talk to them. If everyone there had a story - even a brief one - along with a quest or three, it would go a long way toward making it feel like your home, instead of just the least developed location in the game.
I think the big thing that gets lost in the stronghold implementations is that the stronghold should be just another location, with the same depth of activities and quests. The big difference should be that the character should function as the ruler, not a visitor, in their stronghold, and the quests should revolve around questions of leadership and rule - proving a space to do the types of stories unique to a "ruler" - which could included everything from who to hire to how to deal with plots among the staff to how to plan for a coming invasion.
that makes a lot of sense
the stronghold really lacks. . . personality, is i guess how I'd put it. It doesn't feel like a place and I never really cared about it.
I think they restricted themselves too much by thinking they had to make it near completly optional because some people didn't like the idea.
Right now it is so optional you might be better off just ignoring it completely. Maybe just restore the resting place so you can rest there between Endless Path trips but other than that it feels like you spend a ton of cash and get nothing much for it. The taxes you collect are sad, pathetic amounts compared to what you get from killing one group of well-armed kith enemies. They are also way too low compared to the amount of cash rebuilding everything costs. Thankfully money's not a big problem in the game but if it was I'd feel bitter about all the wasted copper.
I never hired guards myself and I consider all the taxes pure profit. I don't give a shit if some robin hood character nabs some of them. It's not like I have roads to maintain or whatever. In fact, I think the only upkeep is the before mentioned guards that I couldn't give a shit about.
I also sent one dude to my dungeon, who immediately escaped, so now I just murder people when it gives me the dungeon option. An empty dungeon is a clean dungeon is a happy dungeon.
Because of how much damage guns do, I am not finding so much use for wizard damage, though blocking off doorways with flame walls is fun. Any RPG that has that spell is ok by my book, honestly. I then chuck some fireballs through the door to hit the traps mobs on the other side. In open areas, the mage can slicken ground where ranged enemies are targeting my backline, or where extra mobs might break through and hit my backline. Cleric AoEs are amazing. They target only enemies and knock them down. Saves my ass so much.
I used my wizards in BG 2 as damage, though. Some folks here clearly don't know the joy of Death Fog.
the only really infuriating fight I had was early in chapter 2
the second raedric fight. the enemies in that fight were stupid as hell, plus his auras on top of it where you had to keep protection from fear up at ALL TIMES and he would make your party explode in fireballs. the minions he had took so much damage to kill and they would run straight for your mages.
I am now really worried about this, because (Chapter 1 spoiler? Am I still in Chapter 1? What's Chapter 1???)
My quest bugged out - it finished, and I got the exp, and the Kolsc cut-scene and everything, but the quest remains unfinished in my journal, and when I revisit the keep, it's all empty now (though it was populated with friendly soldiers I'd bypassed on the way in). Am I screwed? So confused.
oh i actually had a question about the resolution of the raedric stuff
epliogue-y spoilers
Is it possible to get another leader for Gilded Vale? Or if you kill Raedric are you locked into the "independent, better off but lawless and rowdy" Gilded Vale ending?
oh i actually had a question about the resolution of the raedric stuff
epliogue-y spoilers
Is it possible to get another leader for Gilded Vale? Or if you kill Raedric are you locked into the "independent, better off but lawless and rowdy" Gilded Vale ending?
Did you miss that his cousin Kolsc is taking his place? Gilded Vale will go on with a leader. I don't know what might happen if you kill him too. Nothing, probably.
EDIT: Wait you mean at the end of the game? I didn't notice you said epilogue-y. I guess I just spoiled an epilogue for myself then.
Wizards have a lot of elemental spells so they benefit from the talents that increase elemental damage.
Their low level spells also becomes per encounter at higher levels. Always having Eldritch Aim cast can make Wizards way better damage dealers/debuffers than Ciphers. They pretty much won't miss any more and will get tons of crits. Eldritch Aimed Fan of Flames with Scion of Flame can destroy hoards of high level enemies.
Wizards have a lot of elemental spells so they benefit from the talents that increase elemental damage.
Their low level spells also becomes per encounter at higher levels. Always having Eldritch Aim cast can make Wizards way better damage dealers/debuffers than Ciphers. They pretty much won't miss any more and will get tons of crits. Eldritch Aimed Fan of Flames with Scion of Flame can destroy hoards of high level enemies.
I feel like (much like in D&D, but moreso) those elemental damage bonus talents just aren't worth it. You need to be constantly looking at enemy DR/defenses and choosing spells that way, so trying to be the "fire guy" or whatever and focusing on that kind of damage needlessly hamstrings any casters.
I've been thinking about non-standard party setups, particularly involving multiples of certain classes, and how they could break the game. I think it would be really fun. Honestly, 6 of any given class could be awesome.
6 rangers with pet bears has been done. People say it's actually very effective because all the bears easily tank all the enemies due to the engagement system and you can just autoattack destroy everything.
Imagine 6 island aumaua rogues tricked out with the right talents to be packing 4 blunderbusses each. Sneak attack in the first 2 seconds of combat means you thin every herd incredibly fast, and quick switching to the other blunderbusses without needing to reload probably means the rest of the fight is over just as quickly.
Imagine 6 chanters all chanting different chants, keeping the whole group perma-buffed with everything. If they can survive to get a few chant points you could summon a huge army. In fact, survivability might not be a problem, if you assume their summons will be dealing all the damage. Stat them all for pure defense, put them in the heaviest enchanted armor you can find, take all the best defensive talents.
Wizards have a lot of elemental spells so they benefit from the talents that increase elemental damage.
Their low level spells also becomes per encounter at higher levels. Always having Eldritch Aim cast can make Wizards way better damage dealers/debuffers than Ciphers. They pretty much won't miss any more and will get tons of crits. Eldritch Aimed Fan of Flames with Scion of Flame can destroy hoards of high level enemies.
When does this actually happen? I'm at level 8 now and I still think they're per encounter. Really wish there were clear levelup charts somewhere.
There is also a ring for sale in defiance bay that gives +4 level 2 spells.
make like 2 of them geared up to be tanks just to hold the line until the skeleton army exists, give the rest ranged weapons
18 Wurms, 12 Wisps, etc. It would be amazing.
Have one chanter with the speed boost chant kite while everyone builds up Phrases and then it is army time.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
When does this actually happen? I'm at level 8 now and I still think they're per encounter. Really wish there were clear levelup charts somewhere.
Level 9. Level 2 spells become per encounter at level 11.
I think level 1 spells should change at level 8 though. That's really late game to throw the player such a small bone like that.
I turned 8 not long ago so maybe I need to check more closely. I think I prefer the level 1 spells over level 2 even. Bigger aoes, party friendly, and more debuffy iirc
Posts
I've gotten better at combat after a very discouraging start, mainly by turning every auto-pause option on and avoiding pretty much every non-mandatory fight until I was able to recruit some party members.
Mainly I'm just not that interested in combat, period.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Just turn on "auto pause after ability used". That's what I've had on since the beginning, and it makes it far easier to be sure my guys are always doing something useful. Though melee is a little tougher since sometimes they'll get caught up in engagement and not reach the target you assigned them.
I wish there was at least some level of AI in this so I could tell me fighters and paladins to just always use their encounter abilities on whoever they're hitting until they run out.
this ability trivialized most encounters on hard outside of the boss fights
the other stuff wasn't amazing but i think they get reasonably good sources of raw damage which ends up being very useful indeed (and it might test against will, which is good to have - most attack spells test fort/reflex)
why does petrify cause enemies to take 4x damage? :iiam: *petrifies final boss, gibs them in two seconds*
Actually in this game, mages seem to be super oriented toward debuffs, knockdowns, blind, paralysis etc. At least Aloth is set up that way, but really, all the best mage spells are about control. Druid is more for damage.
PSN: Threeve703
Some stuff happens in it via the passage of time, like sleeping or wandering all over the world. And other stuff happens in it via turns, which happen every time you finish a quest, I believe. That means there are a limited number of turns in the game, eventually those turn events will stop happening.
You collect taxes on turns, not every turn, maybe every other turn. And you can collect more taxes based on the prestige level of your stronghold. However, the guards you've hired to protect your coffers during tax collection are paid every week.
So if you spend a lot of time in-game going around traveling, making small progress on quests here and there, fighting, resting, you might end up paying your guards multiple times between getting any money out of the stronghold. Just a drain on funds for no reason. And someday when you run out of quests but want to keep spending time in the world, the guards will be useless and should be ditched.
Even early in the game it might actually be worthwhile to fire all your guards and go out exploring, getting quests up to the very last step before completion, then hire a bunch of guards and turn all the quests in at once, triggering a bunch of turns right away.
I get that logically it makes sense for guards to be paid weekly, but then, it doesn't make any sense that you would go collect taxes multiple times in the same day. They should all be operating on the same time system. And I understand that if taxes were collected based on the passage of time, players would cheese this and travel from one side of the map to the other to rack up money...essentially I think the guards should be paid on turns as well.
Besides that, there's other weirdness too...I think events that let you deal with prisoners happen on turns, but prisoners can escape at any time, based on the passage of time. So it's possible to capture a prisoner and lose them before you even have a chance to do anything with them. I just had that happen to me.
Also, given that:
a) there are a limited number of turns in the game
b) you earn more money per payday turn with more prestige
c) you gain prestige by restoring stronghold buildings, which costs money and time
If you want to get the most money out of the stronghold, the best thing to do is to unlock it and then complete no quests for a very long time, just go around getting as much money as you can, do the Endless Paths of Od Nua, etc. Pay for a stronghold upgrade and wander the map back and forth until it completes, pay for the next one, keep doing that until you've gotten as much prestige as possible. Then you hire guards and start questing again.
Weird, weird system.
the stronghold really lacks. . . personality, is i guess how I'd put it. It doesn't feel like a place and I never really cared about it.
Anthony Davis replied to that joke
I'm not really a fan of the stronghold but the reason you don't get paid based on the passage of time is that some people would consider that an exploit because you could just rest and make money.
I think they restricted themselves too much by thinking they had to make it near completly optional because some people didn't like the idea.
Even then, it's a lot better than DA:I's, IMO. Feels like I have a lot more options and things to do with it, even if none of them are strictly necessary.
Yeah, I addressed that in the post. Given the choice I would solve all stronghold issues by making everything to do with it turn-based. Stronghold upgrades happen on turns, taxes are collected on turns, guards are paid on turns, prisoners escape or are ransomed on turns, etc.
That would make it more strategic too. You couldn't inflate your prestige with enough money and resting like you can now, instead you would have to decide which thing to upgrade next, knowing that it will affect how much taxes you get on future turns. Prestige first, or security, or a balance?
Can't wait for the expansions and especially PoEII (If they decide to work from this base and just focus on content/system improvements/encounter design)
They feel like sketches for a bigger idea in both games. I found the Dragon Age one better in that it did a better job functioning as a central hub. I think the decision to automatically split up the party and give them unique interaction in the stronghold helped a lot to make it feel like a central part of the game, even if the upgrades and NPCs felt very limited. Having events like the judgements also helped make it feel like your center of power.
In Pillars, and to a lesser extent Dragon Age, I think a lot could be done simply by making the NPC around the castle, with unique locations and NPCS with unique names and dialogue. You should be able to do quests for shopkeepers, opening up better stocks by finding new sources for supply or finding skilled craftsmen to join you. I'd like to hire more named guards and have a reason to talk to them. If everyone there had a story - even a brief one - along with a quest or three, it would go a long way toward making it feel like your home, instead of just the least developed location in the game.
I think the big thing that gets lost in the stronghold implementations is that the stronghold should be just another location, with the same depth of activities and quests. The big difference should be that the character should function as the ruler, not a visitor, in their stronghold, and the quests should revolve around questions of leadership and rule - proving a space to do the types of stories unique to a "ruler" - which could included everything from who to hire to how to deal with plots among the staff to how to plan for a coming invasion.
Right now it is so optional you might be better off just ignoring it completely. Maybe just restore the resting place so you can rest there between Endless Path trips but other than that it feels like you spend a ton of cash and get nothing much for it. The taxes you collect are sad, pathetic amounts compared to what you get from killing one group of well-armed kith enemies. They are also way too low compared to the amount of cash rebuilding everything costs. Thankfully money's not a big problem in the game but if it was I'd feel bitter about all the wasted copper.
I also sent one dude to my dungeon, who immediately escaped, so now I just murder people when it gives me the dungeon option. An empty dungeon is a clean dungeon is a happy dungeon.
Fighter (tank)
Paladin (offtank)
Rogue (shotgun)
Chanter (shotgun)
Priest (pistol)
Mage (wand)
Because of how much damage guns do, I am not finding so much use for wizard damage, though blocking off doorways with flame walls is fun. Any RPG that has that spell is ok by my book, honestly. I then chuck some fireballs through the door to hit the traps mobs on the other side. In open areas, the mage can slicken ground where ranged enemies are targeting my backline, or where extra mobs might break through and hit my backline. Cleric AoEs are amazing. They target only enemies and knock them down. Saves my ass so much.
I used my wizards in BG 2 as damage, though. Some folks here clearly don't know the joy of Death Fog.
I am now really worried about this, because (Chapter 1 spoiler? Am I still in Chapter 1? What's Chapter 1???)
epliogue-y spoilers
EDIT: Wait you mean at the end of the game? I didn't notice you said epilogue-y. I guess I just spoiled an epilogue for myself then.
Their low level spells also becomes per encounter at higher levels. Always having Eldritch Aim cast can make Wizards way better damage dealers/debuffers than Ciphers. They pretty much won't miss any more and will get tons of crits. Eldritch Aimed Fan of Flames with Scion of Flame can destroy hoards of high level enemies.
because this spear isn't very good at all and I don't even use spears
like there's a whole cinematic for it and it's pretty much garbage
I feel like (much like in D&D, but moreso) those elemental damage bonus talents just aren't worth it. You need to be constantly looking at enemy DR/defenses and choosing spells that way, so trying to be the "fire guy" or whatever and focusing on that kind of damage needlessly hamstrings any casters.
6 rangers with pet bears has been done. People say it's actually very effective because all the bears easily tank all the enemies due to the engagement system and you can just autoattack destroy everything.
Imagine 6 island aumaua rogues tricked out with the right talents to be packing 4 blunderbusses each. Sneak attack in the first 2 seconds of combat means you thin every herd incredibly fast, and quick switching to the other blunderbusses without needing to reload probably means the rest of the fight is over just as quickly.
Imagine 6 chanters all chanting different chants, keeping the whole group perma-buffed with everything. If they can survive to get a few chant points you could summon a huge army. In fact, survivability might not be a problem, if you assume their summons will be dealing all the damage. Stat them all for pure defense, put them in the heaviest enchanted armor you can find, take all the best defensive talents.
make like 2 of them geared up to be tanks just to hold the line until the skeleton army exists, give the rest ranged weapons
When does this actually happen? I'm at level 8 now and I still think they're per encounter. Really wish there were clear levelup charts somewhere.
There is also a ring for sale in defiance bay that gives +4 level 2 spells.
I also like imagining a hodgepodge of summons. Mid game you got 3 skeletons, a phantom, 6 wurms and 4 will-o-wisps, or whatever.
Level 9. Level 2 spells become per encounter at level 11.
I think level 1 spells should change at level 8 though. That's really late game to throw the player such a small bone like that.
18 Wurms, 12 Wisps, etc. It would be amazing.
Have one chanter with the speed boost chant kite while everyone builds up Phrases and then it is army time.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
lay all of your seals before combat and lure enemies into them.
I turned 8 not long ago so maybe I need to check more closely. I think I prefer the level 1 spells over level 2 even. Bigger aoes, party friendly, and more debuffy iirc