Pillars Of Eternity Options

[SubRosa]

Pillars of Eternity is now on sale for $18 at Gog. If you don't own it already, now is the time...

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Aug 17 2017, 02:54 AM

[SubRosa]

I created Hecate for Pillars. I was thinking that I would use all the regular companions with her. Except for Durance, since I don't really like him much. My plan was to hire an Adventurer for the team's Priest.

I could just create a generic character for the Priest. But I was thinking it would be cooler to use another Fallout character. So now I am looking through my other Fallout characters and the games NPCs to find a good candidate. Killer Frost is probably my best pick from former player characters. Out of NPCs maybe Julie Farkas from New Vegas? Dr. Li is too much of a stick in the mud. Daddy James does not feel right. Maybe the medic from Mothership Zeta? But he was kind of a wuss. Maybe Doc Mitchell?

In the end I went with Killer Frost

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Mar 15 2018, 04:38 PM

[Lopov]

Wasteland team is conquering the Eora.

Frost Killer is now the priest!

Both Doc Mitchell and Julie are good options too, and maybe also Daniel from Honest Hearts, he is a missionary IIRC.

[SubRosa]

In The Flash tv show Killer Frost is a doctor/bio-engineer. So she fit the bill for a healer type. Ironically Hecate is also a medical doctor/nurse. She learned from Daddy James in Vault 101. But never had time to finish her medical schooling there with him.

I forgot all about Daniel from Honest Hearts. He would have been good too.

Sadly, now that I started Hecate in Skyrim, her Pillars game has fallen by the wayside. At least for now.

[SubRosa]

Gog.com has The Pillars Definitive Edition for sale for $30. It is the base game plus the two White March expansions. Plus it has some new soul-bound weapons and pirate-themed goodies inspired by the new Deadfire game that comes out next year.

Sadly, the Deadfire Pack is only for game version 3.07. But IEMod has not been updated for that game version yet.

If you like team-based strategy RPGs, buy it.

[SubRosa]

Sadly IEMod has yet to be updated to 3.07. However, I have seen several people say that it does work with that game version, at least mostly. So I installed 3.07, and the Deadfire pack with it. So far it works even with the older version of IEmod. No CTDs at least, and I see the IEMod options there and they seem to work (except the spells per encounter, which did not work before either).

So I started a new game with Hecate. This time I decided to try something fancy. In Fallout Hecate has medical training, though is not quite a doctor. Dear old Daddy James was a doctor and scientist, and Hecate had been following in his footsteps when she was forced to flee the vault. So I decided to try to use the console to create a Ranger/Priest hybrid.

You can use the console to add spells to non-spellcaster classed characters. But since they are not spellcasters, there is nothing in the interface to allow you to cast them. So I made Hecate a Priest and saved. Then I opened up her save with Eternity Keeper, and used the option in it to edit Raw values. Buried in all the values in there are things like Base Deflection, Melee and Ranged Accuracy, Base Health and Endurance, etc.. I used this page to give Hecate the values for a Ranger. Then saved and went back to the game.

Once in the game I used the console to give Hecate a bow to start with, and the Ranger abilities Swift Aim and Wounding Shot.

I played through the tutorial dungeon and beyond a little bit. So far it is working great. Hecate is an archer, who can heal. There is no animal companion, but that is fine, as she never really had one in the Fallout games anyhow. I will just have to use the console to give her archery abilities as she levels up.

[SubRosa]

Well, I decided to cancel my 3.07 game. IEMod was working. But unfortunately other mods that rely upon were not, like Ranger Improvements and Arcane Veil Modal. I could tell because when I used the modded abilities I their graphics wold not appear correctly. Instead I would get a bright pink square on the screen. If that much was not working, the rest of the mods must not have been either. I found a few replacements, but none that did quite the same thing, in the full manner.

So I am going back to 3.06. Looks like this will be the final game version for me.

[SubRosa]

Pillars of Eternity II is out, so I bought it. It is huge. About a 25 gig download. I have a pretty fast internet speed, and it took me about 5 hours or so to download it.

I had some issues right off the bat. First whenever it I started the game, it would only show about an inch of it along the top of my monitor, and my desktop along the rest of the screen. I would have to Alt+Tab back and forth multiple times before I could get the game to show up full screen. It took some digging but I found out that in the game's options -> graphics it was set to Windowed. Setting it to Fullscreen fixed that.

I also had a huge amount of screen flickering whenever I moved. I mean really painful to the eyes. I found that again going to Options -> Graphics and setting the MSAA to 1 stopped that.

I also found that at one point the keyboard just stopped working. That was a real pita. Restarting the game seemed to fix it. I think.

So getting to the actual game, I only played enough to get a feel for it. You can import a save from Pillars of Eternity I. So long as it is from just before the endgame. I experimented and imported Persephone's save.

An interesting thing is that even with an imported save, you still have the options to change your character's race, class, portraits, etc... Basically you still start your character over from scratch. So it isn't really importing your character. Instead I think it is just importing your choices from the first game. Because if you do not import a save, you still have to tell the game how the first game turned out. There are half a dozen choices to pick from, on a sliding scale from really good to really awful. So PoE II takes it for granted that your character was the hero from the the first game, whether you actually played it or not.

Another observation is that the beginning is rather long. In PoE I you start straight with character creation, then you are dropped into the world and the tutorial starts with a little bit of talking, and then you can start walking around doing stuff. In PoE II the game starts with your character being dead and in the afterlife, and you get a very brief replay of some of the key events of PoE I. Then you talk to the goddess of death and she tells you that shit has hit the fan since you have been gone. Then you finally get to create your character. Afterward there is some more talking, you get a second chance at life, go back to Eora, and find yourself on a ship. Then there is more talking. And finally a battle with pirates.

So basically the opening of PoE II is a lot more long and drawn out. Not really a good thing if you like creating a lot of characters (like me).

I also discovered something pretty quick. In PoE I you had two character portraits: A large one and a small one. In PoE II there are four of them. Obisidian calls the two new ones watercolors. I call them crappy artwork. Why anyone would want that over the good artwork is a mystery to me.

I also saw that all of the classes from PoE I were present from the start of the game. I did not see any new classes or races. However, there is the option to multi-class now, and there are subclasses as well.

I didn't really go any further. I just got a sense of it. I am not really in a big hurry. If it is anything like the first game I expect there to be lots of updates to the game, some of which will probably require restarts of the game because of save game incompatibility. Instead I went back to PoE I. Maybe I will finish that with Aela, then import her save to PoE II and play here there after the versions get settled down some.

[SubRosa]

So I am back to my PoE I game starring Aela and her TES pals.

Here is a team pic. From the back, Aela is on the left and Ungarion beside her. The middle row is - left to right - Ancondil, Tadrose, Teresa, and Methredhel. Up front is Teresa's animal companion Barenziah. Plus of course the giant miniature cosmic space piglet pet Boo

Aela buffs up the team with an Armor of Faith spell, while off to the side Ungarion slings a Rolling Flame spell at the oncoming attackers

Later in the same fight, Aela has been knocked down, while Methredhel gets hammered by a Pillar of Faith spell cast by the Xaurip Shaman (the guy in the staff and headdress to the left)

Taking on a Drake and its Xaurip minions

While the rest of the team slugs it out with skeletons, Aela kills the skellie mage from long range with her Barbs of Condemnation spell

[Acadian]

Hee! Nice, I recognize the red head with the faint smile!

[SubRosa]

Good news! IEMod is out for game version 3.07. That is the final version of Pillars of Eternity I. I just downloaded it, and it seems to work fine. I think I am going to try a new game with Aela and the vanilla companions.

[Acadian]

Back to D&D! I look forward to seeing/hearing some of Aela's adventures.

[SubRosa]

I have added some mods for 3.07. So far on the Nexus there are mods for making Arcane Veil modal (which I insist on), and improving the range and speed of Arcane Assault. There is one that removes the time limit for Druid shapeshifting. One to improve Rogue talents, and one to improve Paladin talents. Sadly, there is not one to improve the Rangers.

I tried my old Ranger talent mod that works with 3.05 and 3.06, but it does not work on 3.07. So far that is the only difficulty I have found.

[SubRosa]

I spent some time experimenting with January in Pillars of Eternity 1. I am trying her as a Monk class, because that is basically what she is. The trouble is, I don't really like how PoE does Monks. Your class powers are based on Wounds, which you only get from taking damage. Which is really counter-intuitive.

The class does do some serious unarmed damage right out of the gate. More than the regular classes do with the base weapons. But where the Fighter can do a Knockdown twice every battle, Jan can do no special attacks at all, because she is not being hit.

After Cliant Lis January went it alone. I removed Heodan and Calisca from the party so they did not get killed. I can bring them back into the party if I really want to. But so far I decided to try it solo. January hit a lot more, took a lot more damage, and so was able to use her special powers. So far the only one she has is Torment's Reach, which is a cone-shaped area attack that does extra crushing damage. It was really cool.

She took on the bear in Valewood solo. That was touch and go. The bear hit her once and gave her 5 Wounds from all the damage. That gave her tons of special attacks. Then the bear hit her again and she was dead. I reloaded and tried once more. This time after being hit once Jan took about 7 Wounds, and was nearly dead. She was able to drink a healing potion and get her health back. Because of that she survived.

So I am not sure what to think. It can work, but it is really weird. I don't like all this Wound business. I wish there was some way to use your powers without them. Or a mod that would let you start every battle with X number of Wounds. But sadly there is not, and this game is just too insanely difficult to mod for me to create one.

So I might just restart and try her as a Paladin instead. She is not especially devout. But she is a magical fighter, and she is definitely an inspiration. She does work as a sword and board fighter, as she has been doing in Skyrim. She is a Viking after all. I have always imagined her eventually learning to fight with a sword in the Stormcrow fic. I could go Fighter, but Eder is one, and he is the first companion you meet. Likewise, he works best as Sword and Shield. So maybe I could do January as a two-handed sword Paladin?

[SubRosa]

I am having a lot more fun with Jan as a Paladin. Now I just cannot decide what to use -> Spear and Shield, Sword and Shield, or Greatsword. I think I am having the most fun with the Spear and Shield combo so far.

[Acadian]

I am having a lot more fun with Aela as a Paladin. Now I just cannot decide what to use -> Spear and Shield, Sword and Shield, or Greatsword. I think I am having the most fun with the Spear and Shield combo so far.

Glad you're making some progress. Aela or Jan?

[SubRosa]

Oops, I got confused. Jan is the Paladin. Aela has signed on to be her cleric in this playthrough. All the other NPCs will be the vanilla ones. I just don't want to use the vanilla cleric NPC, since I don't like him.

[SubRosa]

I am enjoying playing January as a Paladin a lot more than my attempt as a Monk. She has a talent called Strange Mercy that I just adore. Whenever she kills an enemy, it heals all of her party members.

I did some things differently with her that I normally would. I gave her the Arcane Veil ability, which normally only wizards get. It is basically a force field, and gives a big defense bonus, making it harder to hit her. At the same time she does not wear armor (well, she just now upgraded to a set of robes). So she has the full attack speed, even with a Great Sword. But if she does get hit, she does not have any armor to soak any of the damage up. I maxed out her Constitution at the start, so she can take a lot of hits however, just like in her fiction.

She is also a Pale Elf, my first time every playing one, or even having one in the party. They get a defense bonus vs. Fire and Cold attacks. I am not sure if that is making a difference or not.

So far, she is a pretty awesome tank who also dishes out massive damage. That is why I went with the Great Sword over the Spear and Shield. I wanted her to be a damage dealer, rather than your more traditional tank who just soaks up the damage but does not dish out a whole lot themselves.

So far it is working. Though the battle with Lord Raedric was kind of touch and go for her for a while. She needed healing from the cleric mid battle, and had to heal herself too. But she never got truly near death.

I also decided to replace Aela with another cleric hireling. It did not feel right for Aela to have a mace and shield and sometimes fight people in melee, which this party needs sometimes. So I created Yemaya, a Coastal Aumaua. She uses a War Bow and Mace + Shield. Her order gets a bonus ability with the Mace, which is why I went with that. She is working out well as the classic cleric, serving up buffs and healing, along with occasional ranged spell attacks and stepping in to fight in melee when there are too many bad guys for the front line fighters to block them all.

What is kind of weird is that since I decided not to use Calisca and Heodan after the tutorial, her party does not have a Rogue. So it wound up falling on January to do all the Thief work, since the other party members naturally have their skills elsewhere. I wound up taking the Scientist background for her when I created her. There was no writer background after all. Dissident was closest, but she's not really a revolutionary, except by merely existing. Besides, I was not thrilled with the skill bonuses for that.

[Acadian]

I'm so pleased that January is finding her way in PoE! Transitioning a clearly established character to a new game can be a challenge as you have to work with what the game can provide while trying to stay true to her nature.

[SubRosa]

I discovered something interesting today. While you can use the console to give yourself spells, unless you belong to the class that uses them, they won't show up anywhere in the UI. So you cannot cast them. But when I was looking through the prefab files, I noticed that there are many named spellbind_ability. I think these are spell-like effects granted by magic items. These will appear on your UI no matter the class. So you can give yourself these with the console. You can use this to sort of multi-class. I might do this to give January a lightning bolt, or jolting touch spell.