Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Haplo]

Actually the weapons even grow in size AND damage they deal.

Having Colossal-sized bastard swords in Kingmaker dealing 6d8 base damage, before enchantments and modifiers, was kewl.

 

[Dwarvophile]

Actually the weapons even grow in size AND damage they deal.

Having Colossal-sized bastard swords in Kingmaker dealing 6d8 base damage, before enchantments and modifiers, was kewl.

Somehow yes, but it becomes so automatic, I grew bored of it.

 

[mediocrepoet]

EDIT : actually you're right, it was, even in AD&D already, which is the edition I played most...

I was looking it up too. The only edition where it appears to be ambiguous is 1E where it's just called Enlarge and can be used on all sorts of stuff. Even there I'd say that the DM would be a twat for trying to crush you inside your clothes/armour, but that'd be a table thing I guess. Certainly there are applications like that though, like putting a guy inside a small room or box and then using enlarge, but YMMV.

 

[Dwarvophile]

EDIT : actually you're right, it was, even in AD&D already, which is the edition I played most...

I was looking it up too. The only edition where it appears to be ambiguous is 1E where it's just called Enlarge and can be used on all sorts of stuff. Even there I'd say that the DM would be a twat for trying to crush you inside your clothes/armour, but that'd be a table thing I guess. Certainly there are applications like that though, like putting a guy inside a small room or box and then using enlarge, but YMMV.

I might vaguely remember something like that last application. But somehow it is funny that in all D&D's heroic fantasy ludicrousness the only thing I would pick on is the fact that a spell would make you grow, but also your clothes & equipment! It just doesn't seem right to me lol!

 

[mediocrepoet]

EDIT : actually you're right, it was, even in AD&D already, which is the edition I played most...

I was looking it up too. The only edition where it appears to be ambiguous is 1E where it's just called Enlarge and can be used on all sorts of stuff. Even there I'd say that the DM would be a twat for trying to crush you inside your clothes/armour, but that'd be a table thing I guess. Certainly there are applications like that though, like putting a guy inside a small room or box and then using enlarge, but YMMV.

I might vaguely remember something like that last application. But somehow it is funny that in all D&D's heroic fantasy ludicrousness the only thing I would pick on is the fact that a spell would make you grow, but also your clothes & equipment ! It just doesn't seem right to me lol!

I *think* that later editions toned it down so that basically if you wouldn't fit inside the object, you stop growing, to avoid super lethal level 1 spells.

But anyway, other than that, despite liking out of combat spellcasting, I agree that getting rid of the pre-combat buff parade is an improvement in POE. There are other ways to achieve the same result, but Sawyer's works well enough.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Hate the buffing routine of 10+ buffs per character per rest. This way you have to consider which buffs are really worth it - and which may save your skin in a given situation. Of course you still use the same old buffs too much, but its a, pardon...

This is exactly what turned me of Pathfinder. It becomes so repetitive!
Buff everybody, now run through the dungeon as fast as possible & kill everything before the enlarge spell effects runs off. The cleaning team will pass later to get the loot anyway. I think about this spell in particular because it is so silly how they adapted it. Imagine casting enlarge on yourself while in plate armor. What a mess. In a pen&paper session, the DM would have a laugh.

He identified a problem, but the solution was terrible.

 

[Decado]

I liked the buffing/pre-combat parameters in PoE, though I wish some priest spells (like Prayer/Litany Against X) could be castable before combat. Say, if you know you're going into combat against vampires you would want to drop a buff against domination/charm. Sometimes -- inexplicably, and often times enragingly so -- combat starts and a dickhead vampire is able to drop a domination before Durance can pop off a Prayer, even though it should be a near-instant cast at the start of combat.

 

[Kjaska]

Finally got around to checking out the White March. After coming fresh off Disco Elysium the writing and the mediocre music hit me like a bucket of cold water. Then I remembered that I didn't like RTwP combat and after I died to a horde of lizards I uninstalled again.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Was going through some old PoE kickstarter updates and I completely forgot there was full crafting at one point
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/528227

I'm glad they dropped that. The upgrade system they went with is good and was improved in deadfiya.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

 

[Decado]

I'm sitting in the emergency room waiting area and I'm bored. So I'm going to write about my priest.

As I suspected, it was fucking slow and rough going initially, as my plan (a melee and offensive spell based battle-priest of Eothas) was sublimely flimsy. But I stuck with him and made some good decisions, so things are actually a lot better now.

1) Unlike most other classes, the priest's class talents are relatively easy to pick through if you know what you want. For example, Aggrandizing Radiance is kind of a no brainer. You get a good boost to your melee and survivability, with a hit to your self-healing ability. You can offset this hit by leveling Second Wind, and also by keeping Durance in your party. Having two priests, by the way, makes your party an absolute terror when it comes to fighting vessels. You will fuck fampyres up the ass.

2) Priests really do have some great offensive spells, especially against vessels and those vulnerable to burn damage. Shining Beacon is absolutely ridiculous against groups in particular, and Iconic Projection does decent freeze damage. Finally, various falling, crushing, and burning pillars, and Barbs of Condemnation, get you covered for crush and pierce damage. About the only area priests are deficient in are Corrode and slashing damage, and raw of course (but who cares).

3) For melee combat, taking the favored priest talent and its associated weapon bonuses is a good idea. I gained +10 accuracy with flails which is nice because one of the earliest unique weapons you can get in the Temple of Eothas is a flail (Gaun's Share). Further, medium armor, taking a shield (and the defensive talent that increases shield deflection, and Superior Deflection which drops a flat bonus to your deflection score) really helps you stay alive.

4) You really don't want to try and be a melee-first fighter, and you can increase your lethality by having at least two other melee fighters ready to tank and do DPS. The dual combo of Eder and Zahua as effective anchors helps you bunch up enemies and really pummel them with AoE attacks. If you are in melee, pop your Radiance for the melee boost and you will do respectable damage in between spells, or as a third/off tank to control the battlefield.

5) I'm looking forward to taking Scion of Flame, and the per-encounter spells I'm taking are all offensive-focused: Barbs, Divine Mark, etc. I am also looking forward to getting a decent morningstar (Daybreak is looking good for its holy priest, insta-kill-spirits LARPery) and depending on how it goes, I might respec out of shields and take the two handed weapon perk.

Overall, a melee priest is quite doable if you're smart and willing to lean into the fire dealing. It is a little tougher if you're going to stand up front with Eder because, say, you'd rather have Kana and his arquebus than Zahua and his lunatic fists. But as a damage dealer, he is comparable to a mage and his spell book is so much fatter. He lacks the crowd control spells of a mage, and the raw elemental damage of a druid. But he holds his own smiting ungodly degenerates, and he is physically the toughest out of all the caster classes with a surprisingly high base deflection. I can recommend giving him a go.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Replaying this finally, and i have fun still. The main criticism of combat visibility and badly designed encounters are still my main problem, but all things considered, it's still a fun game.

Loading isnt an issue with ssd so far.


Trying melee tankish cipher build and its been quite effective on hard. Dunno about potd, but it’s fun. Use the spell that steals deflection at 20 focus cost at the start of my battle brought my cipher to 70 deflection, which is almost the same as eder and about the same as pallegina, using quarterstaff that have increased range so i can hit enemies behind eder if possible, if not tank lesser enemies. When the focus reach 50, use the spell that absorb accuracy and defensive status and bonk enemies to death or use AOE if there are tons of mobs. Using 2 chipers is surprisingly very badass you just mass charm enemies while weaking them and AOE ing to death.


In deadfire, i experimented with melee mage, and melee chiper is more effective at surviving head-on attacks so far, maybe because i have better grasp on the system, but i can put my chiper in front row now and not worry about her health, while my wizard always hide behind his tank whenever the battle is too crowded.

 

[Desiderius]

Do i need to know the twist to understand why patriotism gives people the ability to heal others?

https://stephencwinter.com/2017/03/...of-a-healer-aragorn-in-the-houses-of-healing/

Patriotism from Patri (father) as is Kingship.

 

[Poseidon00]

My intention is to build a DPS/Support hybrid and it seems to be working out well, so far. The goal is to stack fire damage, so Scion of Flame is inevitable. Despite not being billed as a damage dealer, the priest actually has some pretty good high-damage spells, mostly revolving around burn/fire damage -- Divine Mark, Shining Beacon, Searing Seal, Pillar of Holy Fire, Cleansing Flame, and Storm of Holy Fire. As a priest of Eothas, I'll also get the 8th level Symbol of Eothas, which is another burn-based spell. Then there's the Radiance spell and all of it's variants, including increased burn damage on vessels.

Is there a decent amount of unique dialogue for an Eothas priest? Considering the story of both games being a godlike and a priest of Eothas are things I want to try to RP through

 

[Tenebris]

My intention is to build a DPS/Support hybrid and it seems to be working out well, so far. The goal is to stack fire damage, so Scion of Flame is inevitable. Despite not being billed as a damage dealer, the priest actually has some pretty good high-damage spells, mostly revolving around burn/fire damage -- Divine Mark, Shining Beacon, Searing Seal, Pillar of Holy Fire, Cleansing Flame, and Storm of Holy Fire. As a priest of Eothas, I'll also get the 8th level Symbol of Eothas, which is another burn-based spell. Then there's the Radiance spell and all of it's variants, including increased burn damage on vessels.

Is there a decent amount of unique dialogue for an Eothas priest? Considering the story of both games being a godlike and a priest of Eothas are things I want to try to RP through

I can count the amount of dialogue with one hand. So no.

 

[kites]

So I finally gave in a second time and tried to give this a fair chance last night; and 5 hours later, idk how I feel. Decent popcorn arpeegee gaming but I really wish it was turn-based (are there any rtwp games that don’t feel like a mess?) Should I skip to PoE2 for the tacked-on TB? The dialogue so far is mostly purple skimmable trash so I don’t think I will care much about storyfagging

What was MCA doing around this time that he only got two edited-down characters into this?

 

[Haplo]

Skip to Deadfire if you like complex and involved character building mechanics. Otherwise PoE 1 is solid IMO. In some areas better then the sequel.

The TB mode, as you wrote, is tacked-on (with duct tape). Kinda fun to exploit some mechanics, but generally inferior to the real time mode.
Although the real time is a little easier to read and follow in Deadfire. Also the AI scripting options for companions are quite robust (and can be further expanded with mods) - its one of the best games companion AI customizability-wise.

 

[Grunker]

So I finally gave in a second time and tried to give this a fair chance last night; and 5 hours later, idk how I feel. Decent popcorn arpeegee gaming but I really wish it was turn-based (are there any rtwp games that don’t feel like a mess?) Should I skip to PoE2 for the tacked-on TB? The dialogue so far is mostly purple skimmable trash so I don’t think I will care much about storyfagging

What was MCA doing around this time that he only got two edited-down characters into this?

Are you playing on PotD?

 

[MajorMace]

I suggest you play deadfire, yes. I find it overall more enjoyable gameplay-wise, with the only clear downside being the time spent travelling the world map (arguably less of an issue on a first playthrough). Dialogs won't be any less of a burden, but on the bright side, they're voice acted and therefore slightly more invigorated.

 

[gurugeorge]

Skip to Deadfire if you like complex and involved character building mechanics. Otherwise PoE 1 is solid IMO. In some areas better then the sequel.

The TB mode, as you wrote, is tacked-on (with duct tape). Kinda fun to exploit some mechanics, but generally inferior to the real time mode.
Although the real time is a little easier to read and follow in Deadfire. Also the AI scripting options for companions are quite robust (and can be further expanded with mods) - its one of the best games companion AI customizability-wise.

Yeah I got a huge amount of fun out of tinkering with the AI conditionals in PoE2. Most of the hyper-modded ones really do work and are effective, you can sort of mould the characters to behave in combat the way you envision them to be rp-wise. And it's pretty robust in the sense that although it falls apart a little on the highest difficulty (you do need to micro-manage more), it works pretty well even on second highest.

I really think these types of games should exploit that kind of AI tinkering more, it's a lot of fun and a whole different layer of gameplay. It's a great feeling to focus on playing and steering your lead character, really inhabiting that avatar, while proudly observing the shenanigans the other characters get up to with the brains you've given them after spending some time pondering and beard-stroking.

AND it's also great to have the option to micro-manage and play RTwP normally when things get tight.

AND it would also be great to have the option to play turn-based when the mood took you as well.

I really would like top-down games to have all three options, but I suppose it's a huge extra investment in design that probably doesn't have that much of a payoff (since it's probably easier to tailor different games to the different audiences who prefer one of the three).

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Didn't the old fallout games do something like that? You only had control of your character, but you can give commands to your AI companions outside of combat so they fight in a certain way?

 

[gurugeorge]

Didn't the old fallout games do something like that? You only had control of your character, but you can give commands to your AI companions outside of combat so they fight in a certain way?

Lots of games have tinkered with it a bit. I think many games have offered the player something like roles to assign (tank, dps, etc.), and some rudimentary engagement conditionals (stay at range, etc.). But the most in-depth ones to my knowledge have been DA:O and POE2 - and while DA:O was pretty good with it, the amount of control you have in POE2 (with the relevant mods) is off the charts.

 

[kites]

Are you playing on PotD?

Hard; I almost did PotD but I don't really enjoy most rtwp. Maybe with some more time it will feel better to me. Some encounters have been pretty challenging, though I imagine later in the game I'll become overpowered. Playing as a Cipher, and I also haven't picked up much of a party yet.

 

[Grunker]

Are you playing on PotD?

Hard; I almost did PotD but I don't really enjoy most rtwp. Maybe with some more time it will feel better to me. Some encounters have been pretty challenging, though I imagine later in the game I'll become overpowered. Playing as a Cipher, and I also haven't picked up much of a party yet.

potd is the only way to fly

 

[Haplo]

Are you playing on PotD?

Hard; I almost did PotD but I don't really enjoy most rtwp. Maybe with some more time it will feel better to me. Some encounters have been pretty challenging, though I imagine later in the game I'll become overpowered. Playing as a Cipher, and I also haven't picked up much of a party yet.

Great class choice!