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]

Okay, since you forced me, I spent the evening rolling several different toons to experiment at pwning the game with.

The first I tried was an Elf Wizard. Wizards can only cast the spells that are in the grimoire they have active. I am not sure how many spells you can put in a single grimoire, but I know you can have more than one of them. You can cast any spell you want from the active grimoire however, up to a certain number per rest period (read per day in the old D&D days). Once you reach your limit, your master of arcane magic spends the rest of the time bashing things with a club or hurling pointy sticks, as befits one of great mystical power. My Wizard had 2 spells per rest period, which meant she spent most of the time not casting spells.

So it is basically just like the old days of D&D. Well almost. Every class receives a special ability that they can perform once or twice per combat. This refreshes between fights, so you can use it over and over again without resting. The Wizard gets one called Arcane Assault, which is a basic magic damage ranged attack. So you will always have that to do twice every time you fight, even when you are out of spells.


Magic works a lot better than I initially realized. I believe all Wizards start with an implement (a wand, rod, or scepter). These are not melee weapons as I had initially thought, but ranged weapons. They are like the staffs in Oblivion or Skyrim. A Wizard's spell casting is still limited by per rest, but they can use their implement indefinitely for a ranged magical attack. The damage is comparable to the starting one-handed swords, daggers, axes, etc...

If you take the Blast Talent (which I believe you should), attacks with your implement get turned into a small area-effect blast with a 5 point DR bypass (armor-piercing). Add the Penetrating Blast Talent, and that turns into a 10 point DR bypass. So you have a continual source of magical attacks with your implement that are nothing to sneeze at.

Finally, IE Mod allows you to change how many spells you can cast per level, how many your grimoire can hold per level, and whether your spells are castable per rest or per encounter (also selectable by level). I highly recommend IE Mod, not just for spellcasting.


Concerning resting, you can only do it in an inn, or if you are in the wilds if you have camping supplies. So far I have not come across either one, so I have not been able to try resting out.

I also tried a Druid. Their special ability is to Shapeshift once per combat. You can choose from half a dozen different animals, each with its own special buff. The bear has a lot of extra endurance and a frightening howl. The wolf can knock enemies down, and so on. The Druid also gets spells, but unlike the Wizard you don't have to fool around with any of that grimoire business. You have access to all the spells of your class, without having to memorize them. But there is still a limit to how many times you can cast them per rest period. For my starting Druid it was twice. She spent most of the time shapeshifting into a bear and beating on things, which I admit I found very satisfying. Outside of that she had a couple of times she could strategically use a spell.

Finally I tried out a Paladin. The Paladin gets to pick one out of two possible special abilities. Either a Lay on Hands that heals people, or a Flaming Weapon that gives you extra damage for one attack. I went with the latter. Otherwise the Paladin played like a Fighter. I think they have some passive abilities that improve their defenses.

The first NPC that joins you is a Fighter, so you get to play her as well. Fighters get a Knockdown special ability that they can use twice per combat. It is nice, as putting someone on their back means they cannot attack you until they get back up. It is handy for crowd control, because you can knock one baddie down, then run to the annoying archer shooting you from a distance and clobber him before the first one gets back up.

Here are some observations on the nuts and bolts of how things work:

Might is how much damage you do. It is sort of like Strength, but is all damage, melee weapons, ranged, or magic. So Might is good.

Dexterity improves your Action Speed, which I think means how quickly you can attack. Your armor seems to also slow down your attack speed, based on how heavy it is. So a low Dex, heavy armor character does not get a lot of chances to do anything.

Perception is your chance to hit (not Dexterity!), and to Interrupt your target's actions (see below).

Constitution does exactly what you think.

Intellect affects area of effect and durations. Not just for spells, but special abilities as well. I am not sure how many non-spellcaster abilities there are with aoe or durations though. I didn't notice any to start with.

Resolve seems to be a lot like the traditional charisma stat, in that it is used for threatening or persuading people. But it also adds to your Deflection some, and a lot to your Concentration. If you are hit while performing an action, be it casting a spell or swinging a sword, you can be interrupted. Concentration is your defense against that.

PoE is a little weird in that you have two health stats. One is Endurance, which completely refreshes between every combat. If your Endurance goes down to zero you get knocked out, but not killed. After the fight is over you get back up and get all your Endurance back. Health is the other stat, which only recovers from resting. You have a lot more Health than Endurance. One of my characters had like 55 Endurance and 170 Health.

Attacks damage both Endurance and Health. So you are going to get knocked out before you get killed. Unless you have been fighting a lot without resting, and your Health has slowly eroded. I saw my characters taking Endurance damage a lot more than health. But of course it completely refreshes after every fight.

So stats to pay attention to are Might for damage, Perception to hit, and of course Constitution to stay alive. Armor slows down your attacks, so tanking up on the heaviest armor is not necessarily the best idea.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Mar 26 2017, 09:26 PM