Pillars Of Eternity Options

[SubRosa]

It is out today. Has anyone bought it and given it a try yet? It is on my To Do list of games. But I was hoping to hear a bit more about it. The Reviews are solid. It sounds like a modern successor to the classic Baldur's Gate-style rpg games, with a new fantasy setting, an isometric view, party of characters, lot of races and classes to choose from.

[SubRosa]

Wow, I had never heard of that Yetizad. But I stopped reading comics a while ago. Aside from the Yeti, the other thing the name makes me think of is the Yazdegerds - the kings of the Sassanian Persians.

I am only a little ahead of you. Skadi killed Raedric a few days ago. She found Caed Nua yesterday, and I just cleared its outside today and started working on the Eastern Barbican. As I understand it, you have to complete that before you can go any farther in the world, and reach Defiance Bay. While I wait for the construction to be done, Skadi and company are exploring the Endless Paths of Od Nua. It is a over a dozen different dungeon levels under Caed Nua.

So far I would not say it is too difficult. One thing the developers said was that they wanted to make a game that you could complete without having to min/max your character. To me it looks more like they spread around everything that a character is going to need into so many attributes that you cannot really min/max a character. There are no real dump stats anymore. But what I see from people posting is that you can finish the main quest without being overpowered. Still, I think I am going to institute a house rule of giving every character a +1 to an Attribute every four levels, like we could in Neverwinter Nights.

I have also seen many people say that the enemy AI for version 2.0 is much improved from the previous game versions. Since now the bad guys act more intelligently, they are harder to defeat. I have seen them trying to do end runs around my front line fighters to get at the squishy mage behind. But I keep Durance back from the front as a reserve, and he intercepts anyone who tries that in melee. Otherwise he is there for support with either spells or ranged weapons.

I think the real secret here is make sure you are always fighting in formation. Keep your fighters up front where they can pin the enemy and soak up their damage. Eder is a great tank. I gave him that magic flail I found early - Guan's Share - and a magic shield I bought at the smithy in the first town. He is really tough in melee. I also gave him an arbalest, so he can get off one good shot at the beginning of every fight. After that he switches to his flail and shield, since it takes too long to reload.

Keep your mages and archers back out of the way, and use them to make pin-point attacks on the enemy. Aloth usually just uses either his Arcane Assault or Blast, and doesn't do much damage. But when something looks really tough, he is my first up to attack with an area spell like Rolling Flame. I found the Slicken spell is really hand too. Cast that directly in front of the party at the start of a fight, and it makes the enemy fall down as they charge you. Then Aloth and your archers can pick at them with ease. Chill Fog is a good 1st level Area of effect spell you can use the same way, as it keeps going for an extended amount of time. Just be careful not to step into it! Ghost Blades is another good 1st level spell. It hits everything in an arc in front of the caster, does decent damage, and doesn't seem to harm the party. Fan the Flames is similar, but it definitely does friendly fire to the party, so I don't use it.

Finally, keep at least one second-line fighter ready to step in and block off an enemy that tries to flank and get into your rear. Durance is a Priest, and he works really well for this. He can fight in melee with his staff, use spells to support the party, or a ranged weapon to attack the enemy from behind the front line. His Holy Radiance does damage to undead like Turning in the old games. I took a talent that increases that damage, and it really does the trick once they all close into melee. It also heals the party, so hold back on using it until later in the fight.

I play in slow mode all the time to make sure I can see keep track of what is happening. I still have to pause a lot to issue orders. My biggest problem is I cannot always tell if a character has cast a spell or fired a weapon yet.

I also never charge in. Instead I keep the entire party in sneak mode, find the enemy, and then deploy for battle from a distance. Then I open up with ranged weapons, and force the enemy to come to me. They will almost always charge. That is what makes that Slicken spell so useful.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Sep 5 2015, 10:11 PM