Is it possible to play Pillars of Eternity successfully using less active abilites?

[J_C]

I decided to make another run with the first PoE, since I haven't played the expansions, neither the new features which were added after release.

But before I delve deeper into the game I'd like to ask, can you play it efficiently using less active abilities? My main gripes with the game was that through Sawyer's genious design decision, every class had a shitton of active abilities. You see, one of the main reason I liked the Infinity engine games was that they were not designed for electrocuted autists with twitchy fingers, but for human beings.

Which means that only caster classes had many active abilities (spells), melee classes only had a few of them. But PoE is like an MMO, where you have a lots of active abilities, which you constantly have to micromanage through battles.

Now call me old, but I don't have the energy for that anymore, and I don't like it. So my question is, can I play the game efficiently without learning these active abilities? And when I say efficiently I mean that you can play it without sweating blood, breaking the game and use a lot of metaknowledge.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Someone should make a mod for IE games that just replaces all mage spells with an attack called "cast spell"

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

I think that on the standard difficulty (can't rememberer how it was called there) and with a non-caster MC you should be fine with not using most of the abilities.

 

[NJClaw]

You can leave your companions' AI scripts on and let them act however they want, without ever micro-managing them.

Someone should make a mod for IE games that just replaces all mage spells with an attack called "cast spell"

Enhanced editions introduced the "ultra-story mode" where all your characters are immortal, that's basically the same thing.

 

[Butter]

Fighters, Barbarians, and Rangers can all be decent with minimal casting. If you're playing below Hard, add Paladins, Chanters, Monks, and Rogues to the list.

 

[Atlet]

Micromanaging is what makes the PoE combat system actually fun. Very tactical. At least with Path of the Damned difficulty.

Playing on normal will be a breeze, so, you can do whatever you want, if you have a full party.

 

[JarlFrank]

It's not a problem of having too many active abilities, it's a problem of being RTwP.

In a turn based system, this would be a boon rather than a drawback

 

[jackofshadows]

Not sure what's the point of playing it, then. But you don't have to micromanage shit on normal; once you pick up some gear the only reasons for pause would be positioning and some spellcasting. I guess DLCs are might be worth it, still.

 

[Luckmann]

As someone that's currently finishing up a playthrough of PoE in order to play PoE 2, I can tell you that unless you're a huge mongoloid, you can play the vast majority of the game with no abilities at all.

I'm nearing the end of the game and at this point I'm mostly just auto-attacking things.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I've beaten both games on POTD with largely passive parties, it's hardly rocket science. Several classes are well equipt for this sort of thing.

 

[Tigranes]

Sure, you can do at least Hard while ignoring a lot of active abilities and not pausing very often, especially when you put scripts on everybody.

I'm not sure why that's enjoyable, but it should be just fine.