Pillars Of Eternity Options

[SubRosa]

I like the isometric view. It works better for strategy style games, where managing multiple characters and positioning is important. One reason I never use companions in Bethesda games is they always run in front of you when you are shooting, or they shoot you in the back. That kind of thing doesn't happen in isometric games, because you can control the actions of not only yourself, but your companions.

I agree with all of these points - it really helps to plan out the attack before hand and to be able to tell your companions which enemy to go for. I was able to send Calisca and Ursula (my bear) to attack a bandit chief while I took out the bandit archer. It worked well - the two of them took out the more powerful enemy pretty quickly, and I was able to redirect them against the archer, by which time he was pretty hurt.

The downside to the isometric view that you might be feeling is that it feels less personal than the standard third/first person games that Bethesda does. In Sky, Ob, FO, and so on, you get up close and personal with your character. You see their face. In the games like Pillars, Baldur's Gate, NWN, and so on, you are withdrawn from your characters. You watch down from on high, like a distant deity manipulating their actions. The character portraits help alleviate that somewhat, because they give you a close look at each character's face. But for the the most part they are little squiggles on the screen. And I am sure that can be dissatisfying for many.

Since you forced me to, I created a Ranger to try out, and took a lion companion.

I forced you to create a Ranger?

That's like talking about having a great chicken salad, or pizza, or a cheeseburger. After hearing that, can anyone listening do anything other than go out and eat one themselves?

But I did think the ranged combat worked out well. Wounding Shot worked very well at hobbling most enemies and slowing them down. I noticed that the Rogue class gets a sneak attack on all enemies that are hobbled. So it looks like a Ranger and Rogue would be a deadly combo.

Now that give me an idea . . . I had initially considered going with a Rogue character (that or a Druid), but settled on the Ranger as that had more Might.

Thank you for all the info. This is really my first D&D based RPG - and I had never played D&D, so I'm totally unfamiliar with all the terminology and rules. But I don't care beyond having fun following the story. However I do want my character to live long enough to get through the storyline! So your information breaks it down into more manageable chunks for someone like me.

I have been playing D&D style RPGs since, well, since playing actual D&D! Most computer games simplify the rules, even the ones that use them. Or at least they hide most of it behind the screen so you can just play the game. Pillars is actually lot simpler than the old pen & paper D&D games.



I have talked a lot about the nuts and bolts of the game and classes and how to make a character. But one thing I have not mentioned yet is the world itself. One thing that h.e.r. mentioned is how she liked the setting. I do too. It is mostly your basic fantasy setting, with very European-looking buildings and armor and clothing and weapons and social systems. Though unlike most this is more equivalent to the Renaissance Era than the Medieval. There are firearms in the form of arabesques and blunderbusses, which from what I read are really awesome first strike weapons, but are so slow to reload they are useless after the first shot.

I will admit that the idea of any sort of firearms in a fantasy game turns me off. But the truth is it is no different than the Sengoku period of Japan, or Hideoyoshi's invasions of Korea, or good old Western Europe in the 14th and 15th Centuries, when plate armor reached its zenith precisely because it was the only thing that could stop a bullet. Movies and books set in those periods are fun, and I have to admit that playing a game set in one would be too.

Anyway, on top of the generic Fantasy world they do some really creative things with souls, and a naturally forming crystal called Adra. Adra absorbs the souls of people who have died, and in time transmits them to the Spirit World. Then after a while they return to the physical world born into new bodies. Basic reincarnation with some crystals acting as the duct work. Where it gets interesting is that there are scientists called Animancers who study souls, as well as rare people called Watchers who can actually see souls. There are also cases where souls become "Lost" and don't go on to the afterlife. Worse, there is a growing problem of the Hollowborn, babies born without souls. Sometimes the Lost Souls even find a home in these Hollowborn children.

The player character is a Watcher, and the game has some really neat stuff once your Watcher ability turns itself on. You start seeing the souls of people long dead, and reliving past events in the lives of people who are still alive. It is some very cool stuff, and it all fits together really nicely. I don't know where it is all going as I am still only at the very beginning of the game. But it really like it. It is a very welcome change from fantasy worlds I loathed, such as those of the Dragon Age and Witcher games.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Sep 1 2015, 07:46 PM

[haute ecole rider]

I also like how the choices you make in the dialogues open up some decision trees and closes off others. It has a major impact in how the game progresses and how the NPC's interact with the player.

So SeJin and her party just died. In Black Meadow. Fighting something called a Forest Lurker. After fighting two Forest Trolls one after the other. Guess I should have rested the party after that second Troll . . .

So I'm taking a break from this and going back to Skyrim for some im- im- immersion!

Can you tell I'm off from work today?

[SubRosa]

Yay for staying home and playing computer games instead!

I figured out how you can tweak the stats for your animal companion. This is after Skadi's wolf got knocked out in a fight with some Shadows. A 60 Endurance just doesn't cut it for a front line fighter.

You use the same line as when tweaking your player character, only you have to change the name Player to the animal's name. Of course it is not as simple as the name you see in the game. As with the regular companions, you have to find the internal name the game uses. Which of course is going to be vary with each animal companion in every game.

So start with:

FindCharacter {Name}

Use the name you gave your animal companion. It will spit out the internal name. Probably something like CRE_Wolf_Companion(Clone)_6. Then use that name in the AttributeScore code.

AttributeScore CRE_Wolf_Companion(Clone)_6 {attribute} {Final Value}

Raising the animal's Constitution will also raise up their Endurance, and your companion will last a lot longer.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Sep 2 2015, 02:37 AM

[Acadian]

I can see this thread will be a great resource for anyone looking to play. Thank you for posting all these wonderful bits of helpful goodness as you discover them.

[Lopov]

After reading through this thread and some reviews on the Internet, I'll probably start PoE soon, especially if it's a successor of Baldur's Gate, which was my favorite game when I was younger.

My only concern is that I'll find it too difficult since I had many troubles with BG and so I cheated at times. But since I'm mostly interested in storyline, cheating from time to time probably won't ruin my experience with PoE.

Apparently so long as you are Cheat Mode, your achievements are disabled. Like I could give a crap about that.

Very much this!

This post has been edited by Lopov: Sep 2 2015, 10:31 AM

[haute ecole rider]

So in the TES games, you cheat by opening the console with the tilde key. But in POE, how do you go into cheat mode? Noob question, I know, but I'd like to buff my party up a little more.

[SubRosa]

The exact same way. Except that once the console is open you also have to press the Enter key before you can type anything in.

[Lopov]

I started PoE today -> my character is a human monk called Mowrin. So far he made it to the Gilded Vale and is currently resting inside the Black Hound Inn. Alignments seem to be gone but that's not necessarily a bad thing, I intend to roleplay Mowrin as more or less a good character.

I felt funny when I started playing PoE, at the same time memories from playing BG came back but I felt an urge to go play some Fallout since I haven't played any game from an isometric view in years. But in a few minutes I was hooked.

I was nicely surprised inside the ruins where you have to take shelter from the windstorm and Mowrin was capable of disarming most traps on his own and quickly found the exit. I haven't explored the rest of the ruins but I assume that disarming traps was a shortcut of sorts. And since his Athletics is high, he managed to act fast enough to save Heodan (one of tutorial companions) from the bandit chief in the camp before, I like it when skills and abilities have an impact during dialogue.

To reach Gilded Vale, he crossed Valewood where he killed the bear but also found out the sad story behind Perly's death and now intends to punish Perly's traitorous friend. From Valewood he finally arrived to the Gilded Vale and met Aloth, one of the possible companions but for now refused to travel in a company.

I'm still getting used to the game, so far I have tutorial messages enabled, I play on the easiest difficulty and I didn't really study the combat in depth yet. Upon leveling up, I chose the Veteran's Recovery talent, which recovers Mowrin's endurance by itself or something similar and I invested points mostly in Stealth, Mechanics and Athletics.

SubRosa, IIRC, you said that you didn't find camping supplies yet. They can be found on the corpse which you encounter immediately when arriving to Valewood.

EDIT: Is it possible to alter skin color and hairstyle mid-game?

This post has been edited by Lopov: Sep 2 2015, 09:14 PM

[SubRosa]

Another Pillar of the community!

Mowrin looks like a pretty ferocious man of spiritual enlightenment!

Disarming traps is purely based on your Mechanics skill. So you must have at least one point. So too is detecting them, though I think you have to be in Sneak mode to find traps.

Wow Mow killed the bear all by himself! That was one tough ball of fur.

So am I the only one who sees "Valewood" and thinks "Valenwood?"

I did find more camping supplies by now. In fact, as soon as you get in the cave from the biwiac storm you automatically get 1 set of camping supplies added to your inventory. If you follow the cave left from the entrance, there are two more sets of supplies in a crate.

I don't think you can change your hair or skin once you start. But I am not positive. I know you can change your portrait and clothing colors.

There is a Respec option you can select at any merchant. It is mainly for redistributing your points, abilities, and skills. But it might let you change your appearance as well. Nope, I just tried it, and it does not allow you to change your hair or skin.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Sep 3 2015, 02:59 AM

[SubRosa]

Skadi and Fenrir

Fighting Kobolds Xaurip

Slugging it out with a gang of Goldpact Paladins

Battling Forest Trolls

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Sep 3 2015, 02:54 AM

[Lopov]

How do you manage to get "so close" to your characters?

Wow, forest Trolls look tough and ugly.

--

I want to change the hairstyle because Mowrin in game has shorter hair than on the pic but if it can't be done, I'll get used to it. Perhaps I'll find a more fitting portrait online and swap it. I have some good portraits with short hair but the skin is too bright. EDIT: Found one that fits and changed it. Now he looks much less ferocious but more similar to his in-game appearance.

Wow Mow killed the bear all by himself! That was one tough ball of fur.

Surprisingly his stats say that the hardest enemy he fought so far, was a young wolf that he killed together with Calisca in the tutorial.

Now I'm about to do some reading regarding the Monk class before I'm off to work. IIRC they couldn't use any weapons in BG but supposedly they can in PoE.

This post has been edited by Lopov: Sep 3 2015, 07:38 AM

[Acadian]

Great shots! I was looking on those sites you linked earlier in this thread and am quite intrigued. I really like the concept of an elven rangerarcher with a furry familiar. I was pleased to find that such a character (unlike in BG) can function as a real scout because they can learn to handle traps and locks.

[Lopov]

This means that we can expect to see Buffy joining us soon?

[SubRosa]

Lopov: I used the SetZoomRange {minimum zoom} {maximum zoom} console command to get the camera to zoom in so close. I don't know what it isn't that way by default. I find SetZoomRange 0.2 50 works good. Though I might try reducing the second number, as I find the game looks kind of hazy when I am zoomed out that far. I changed it to SetZoomRange 0.2 1.2, as a just a little bit of the second number goes a really long way.

I took on that Bear alone with Persephone, and it killed her about three times in a row. When she finally did manage to defeat it she has used up all her potions and was down to just a handful of Endurance.

From that giant miniature space piglet, I see you sprung for the White March too! Let us know how the Monk works. I have not tried playing one yet.


Acadian: One nice thing about Pillars is that picking locks, disabling traps, and so on are not solely dedicated to the Thief/Rogue class. The Mechanics skill is all you need, and anyone can raise it and become the team lockpicker and trapfinder.

I hope this does mean that we will see a blond bowgirl joining us soon!

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Sep 4 2015, 03:28 AM

[Lopov]

I took on that Bear alone with Persephone, and it killed her about three times in a row. When she finally did manage to defeat it she has used up all her potions and was down to just a handful of Endurance.

From that giant miniature space piglet, I see you sprung for the White March too! Let us know how the Monk works. I have not tried playing one yet.

Maybe the bear wasn't that difficult because I play on the easiest difficulty? I enjoyed playing Monks in Baldur's Gate but at low levels it was very difficult to survive on your own while in PoE (for now) this doesn't seem to be the case.

I actually didn't know that the version without the WM exists too, though I haven't tested the piglet yet. I was busy trying to find out how to drop items on the ground and then I read online that it's not possible.

BTW, can you eat ingredients that you pick up? For instance, in the tutorial your objective was to find some healing grapes but once picked up, they move to Stash instead of Inventory and the only interaction possible is to read its description but you can't actually use them.

[SubRosa]

I play on Average, so maybe that is why the Bear was harder for me.

I had to buy the White March separate. It must be because you are in a different region it came bundled with the game where you are.

To use an ingredient you have to move it to your Quick Items bar in your inventory. I had the same problem until I figured it out.

I think you can drop things. Look down at the bottom of your Inventory page, next to the Stash. There should be a Drop button there. I have never used it though. It is probably something that added with one of the patches. One thing I realized after looking online for answers is that a lot of posts people have made about the game were made when it was in Beta, and this game has changed a lot over the time it has been out. 2.0 - the version we have now - is a lot different from the previous ones.

Today I tried out IE Mod which has a beta version for Pillars 2.0. It does a lot of things, but what got me interested is that it incorporates other mods that do things like change the number of spells mages can cast between rests. There is even an option to change them all from per rest to per encounter. So that makes playing a wizard a really viable option.

There is another option to allow you to use items that are regular inventory and not just in your Quick Items bar. It also lets you switch items between characters during combat.

One thing I like is Fast Scouting Mode, which allows you to move at normal speed while in Stealth Mode. That makes it easier to find hidden and trapped things, by being in Stealth Mode all the time.

It does other things as well, such as allow you to customize your UI, and change a lot of game elements like the circles drawn under the characters to be more like the old BG and IWD games.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Sep 3 2015, 03:38 PM

[SubRosa]

One thing that has not been mentioned for the benefit of folks who have not bought the game yet is Engagement. It is similar to D&D 3 and up where you got attacks of opportunity on opponents who tried to move past you in melee. In PoE, you can Engage one opponent by default, and more with talents. When you Engage them, the two of you are basically stuck in with each other, and they cannot move away without taking an immediate free attack from you that comes with a huge bonus. Naturally it works both ways, and the monsters will engage you as well.

Here is an example. The Wicht in the middle of the screen has engaged Fenrir, my Ranger's wolf companion. The red line that arcs from her to him shows that she has engaged him. Likewise, Fenrir has engaged her as well, so he has a green arc going to her. Finally, to the right of the Wicht is the party fighter Eder, who has also engaged the Wicht. (green is always for good guys, red for the enemy)

I kind of like it. It ensures that enemies "get stuck in" with your front line fighters, and keeps them from just running past them and attacking your squishy mages in the rear. That is what is going on in this pic. The front liners on both sides are engaged with each other in the center, while the squishies in the rear are flinging spells and arrows. So tactics and thinking really works, it isn't just a bunch of characters rushing around pell mell hacking everything that moves.

Granted, it is not so fun when the front line has to step to either side when the mage uses an area spell that would otherwise fry them as well - like Rolling Flame - and the baddies get at the squishy mage before the front line can get back in place. Then the mage is stuck in melee with an enemy slugger. But it should cut both ways, and it makes the game interesting.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Sep 3 2015, 06:44 PM

[Lopov]

I just alt-tabbed out of the game and have a question - how do I move items from stash to quick items so I can interact with them? I can't drag items from Stash, they seem like they can't be moved.

I don't see the Drop button next to Stash either, which is odd, since the version which I use (the White March) should be fully patched. Well unless it's not.

This post has been edited by Lopov: Sep 3 2015, 07:02 PM

[SubRosa]

I just started using IE mod, so it could be that added the Drop button. I also just installed a patch for White March, which might have added it too. It must have been added by one or the other, because I just looked back at this pic from a few days ago and it is not there. I now have a Drop button right under the Crafting one.

I just drag and drop from the stash to the character inventories and it works fine for me.


Edit: Just tested it and it is the IE Mod that adds the Drop button.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Sep 3 2015, 08:25 PM

[Lopov]

Okay, maybe I'll use this mod in the future as well.

Party (Mowrin, Eder, Durance, Black Hound) inside the ruined house

Wolves attack!