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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Last night I beat PoE like a red-haired stepchild. I had a lot of fun playing January through it as a Paladin.

I also gained a new appreciate for the Barbarian class. I added Maneha to the party near the end, and finally figured out how to use her. I like to have my entire party go into sneak mode with ranged weapons equipped as they travel. When they find the enemy, they sneak up to the edge of stealth mode. Then they all open fire on one bad guy. That usually kills them instantly thanks to the hail of spells, arrows, and crossbow bolts.

The trouble with the Barbarian is their Frenzy ability takes a full turn to activate. So if they fire with everyone else in that opening shot, they just stand there for the next turn activating Frenzy. In the meantime the bad guys are running past them to attack the squishy mages in the rear. Sometimes the battle actually ends before they can even do anything.

The Frenzy ability is of course the whole point of being a Barbarian. Like all other games that have it, it gives big bonuses to physical attributes.

So what I learned is to simply eschew the Barbarian having any ranged weapons at all. Instead they are a pure-melee focus. When everyone else opens fire from stealth, they turn on Frenzy. Since it is the opening action, it takes place just as fast as all the attacks the rest of the party is making. Which is pretty instantaneous. Then the next turn the Barbarian is ready to fight just like everyone else.

The cherry on top is at high level the Barbarian gets a Dragon Leap power. It allows them to instantly leap to any spot in a really long range, and do massive damage when they land on someone. So they can practically teleport across the map once the battle starts and get right in with the bad guys.



Hot wings

Ogre hoedown

Werewolf 2: Electric Boogaloo

Night of the Fishmen

Snow Dragon

It's Bane!

I also imported January's save into Pillars of Eternity II, and rolled her as new toon there

I'm glad to see you enjoying PoE. It looks like a worthy successor to BGII and the ilk.

It is a nice way to play the Baldur's Gate games again, without the D&D version 2 rules.

I have been playing Pillars of Eternity 2 for about a day now, and have some observations.

There are more options for speeding up and slowing time during battles now. The little time icon in the gui now has a slider at the bottom, which you can move back and forth incrementally to set it how you like it best. I have it set to one tick from the slowest.

The game also gives you the option of playing it in a true Turn-based mode now, as well as the Real Time Pausable mode from the original. I have not tried Turn-based, since I find I like the RTP.

It is very similar to PoE1 in look and feel. The same races and classes are all there. The same spells. The same perks (which like the original, they call Talents and Abilities, but they are Perks). However, now you can do true multiclassing. When you meet a companion and have them join you, the game gives you the option of what class they will be, with a limited set of options specific to each one. For example, Eder returns as a companion. He was a Fighter in PoE1. You can set him to be a Fighter, Rogue, or Fighter/Rogue in PoE2. Since I am new to the game, I am sticking with the straight classes for now.

Each class now has several subclasses to choose from as well, with different tweaks like specific Perks. I found a mod that adds a Knights of the Storm sublcass for the Paladin, which I originally tried for January. But I was not thrilled with it. It replaced the Paladin's Flames of Devotion attack with an electrical-based copy, which I was fine with. But it also gave a power to turn into an Electrical Elemental, which I don't see myself ever using. But even more so, I learned that there are dialogue options that open up for specific classes and subclasses (which PoE1 did as well). I am thinking if I go with a modded class, I will never get them. So instead I went back and restarted January as a Kind Wayfarer, which she was in PoE1.

As I mentioned before, you can import your final save from PoE1, which that game automatically makes for you now. That carries over your choices from that game to PoE2. But you can also manually set your choices every time you start a character as well. You can even save those sets of choices.

One big change I found is that Perks and spells no longer have a set number of uses Per Rest or Per Encounter as before. Instead they have gone to essentially a power (mana) point system. You start each battle with a set number of Power points based on your level. Every Perk you use costs a set number of points to use. So you can use whichever Perks you like, as often as you like, until you run out of points. This resets with every fight. I like this a lot better than the old way, or how some other games like Dragon Age gave each Perk a cooldown period in which you had to wait to use it again. This way if January wants, she can spam her Flames of Devotion as often as she likes.

Spells are treated exactly like the other Perks now. When you level up a mage or priest picks the same number of spells as a fighter would pick his perks. Likewise, they cost power points to cast the same as regular Perks. So basically, they are Perks. That is a big change from PoE1, where every time a priest leveled they automatically gained all the spells for that new level. I think mages still need grimoires, but I am not positive. Under the new system they seem kind of unnecessary.

The console commands are the same as PoE1, plus some new ones, with a caveat. There is no IEMod for PoE2, and it added several of its own console commands. Like the Jump command, that automatically teleported you to your cursor location. I used that a lot to avoid wasting time backtracking over ground I had already cleared. Now you can use the Ctrl + T command, but you have to do it from the console. Since there is no more IEMod, for any commands to work you have to use the IRoll20s command first to enable cheat mode. Which can be annoying.

The game world is basically the Caribbean, pirates and all. In fact your first encounter is with pirates, almost as soon as you start game proper. Instead of having a stronghold like other games, this time you have a ship. It seems to work like a stronghold you move around the game map. I know you can change ships, and upgrade certain parts of them like the guns. You have to hire a crew, just like you stronghold needed guards. As near as I can tell you have to use the ship to move around the world map to get from island to island. Though once you are on an island, you can move overland on your own.

Speaking of which, moving on the world map is different from PoE1 as well. That was like Baldur's Gate 2, where areas would open up on the world map, you would click on them, and automatically be teleported there to the tactical map of the actual area. PoE2 is more like the original Fallout games, where you have a strategy map that you move a cursor through (with your face on it). You see interesting areas open up as you near them, are blocked by rivers and mountains, etc... You can click on an area of interest to go there and transition to the tactical map for it. Or just bypass it.

So my guess is the way it basically works is you use your ship to travel from one island to another. Then once on the island you use this land-based strategy map to move around from location to location as you explore it. It is actually a lot like the old Pirates games that way, just with better graphics.

Finally, food. Food is no longer an item you eat in or before combat to get buffs. Instead it can only be eaten when you rest in the wilderness. From what I gather, if you don't have food when you rest, you don't get the benefits from resting. If you rest in an inn, it just ignores the food and gives you whatever the inn's bonuses are. Different food items have different bonuses as before. I gather that you select what food each party member uses when you rest, and they get the appropriate bonus.

It also looks like you have to feed your crew now too. I am not exactly sure how that works. But from the hardtack I have found while adventuring, food affects their morale. What their morale means in game mechanics I have no idea. But I do know its better not to feed them hardtack. January was pleased to see that hagfish is an option, and it gives a Resolve bonus. Very appropriate, since in another life her armor is made out of hagfish snot.

Very cool initial review of PoE2. Thank you! I am always on the lookout for a game to have in reserve. Who knows, in a few years I may need to move to my next game.

I have seen people mention that mystic archers are a thing in PoE2. I think it is a Ranger/Mage multiclass.

Edit: There is a Ranger subclass called Arcane Archer, that has a special Imbue power, that allows you to fire spells rather than arrows. It does not sound like it works very well at present however.

Something else I noticed about PoE2 is that they streamlined the Health stat. Instead of two stats for health like they had in PoE1, there is just 1 in PoE2, and it fully refreshes at the end of every battle. It is a lot simpler, and a big improvement.

I am still poking around the first island you start on. So far I have met 3 companions. You start the game with Eder (Fighter), then on the island you find Xoti (Priest), and Aloth (Wizard). So Eder and Aloth carry over from PoE1. I think Pallegina is the only other companion from PoE1 that appears in PoE2. But I am not sure where she is.

It also looks like you can hire generic adventurers in the inns, like you could in PoE1.

This game is a lot more moddable than PoE1. Thanks to that, there are a lot more mods out there. I have a ton already. I found one invaluable one called More Spell Castings Per Level, which increases the number of times spellcasters can cast their spells per fight. This brings them into a more even level with the other classes and their perks. I modded it to add a couple more castings.

Most of the game files are basically text. But it is best to use something like Notepad++ to open them, as otherwise they are a literally wall of text. I have been using Visual Studio Code, which works pretty good.

Nice to hear that the command console works well and that the game seems quite moddable. What's the best way to get and run the game with minimum 'middlemen'? Can it be purchased/run standalone or does it require something like GoG or Steam?

I bought it from Gog, though Steam has it too. Those look like the only two outlets. I just looked at Obsidian's (the developer) website, and they refer to you one of them. So I would definitely go Gog, and maybe wait for a sale. Right now the standard edition of the game is $40, and there are a bunch of dlc, though many are free.

Speaking of which, I have the free Critical Role pack dlc, which adds new voices. All are from the folks who do Critical Role, a group of voice actors who are also super nerds and post their gaming sessions online. They even have a comic book, which is pretty good. Matt Mercer, who is their GM, does many of the voices for Pillars already, like Eder and Aloth. I have been using the Keyleth voice for January. Keyleth is a somewhat innocent and naive character, and has been a perfect fit for Jan. She probably would be great for Buffy as well.

Oh good. I do have GoG so could get it there when/if the time comes I figure. Can you think of any reason I could not pass on PoE 1 and just get PoE 2? I understand the changes to BG style play you've discussed and quite like some of the changes to classic AD&D you spoke of.

You can definitely skip PoE1 completely. The plot of PoE2 depends on things that happened in PoE1. But as I said, you can tell the game exactly what those things are. I even found they have some pre-made PoE1 endings already in PoE2 that you can select. Basically from the kindest to the evilest options. Or you can get really granular and pick every single thing that happened. And you can save those choices for future characters.

The beginning of PoE2 even takes you back through the major events in PoE1, so it will tell you the basics of what happened.

I do know that where you find Pallegenia in PoE2 and I think her circumstances depend on how her quest in PoE1 ended. There is also an item called the Devil's Cuirass (or something like that) which is built from the Devil of Caroc's body. She was an automatron in PoE1. The Cuirass only appears in PoE2 if you chose to not kill her arch-enemy Harmke in PoE1. Killing him actually gives her a much nicer ending in PoE1, which is how I went. Even though it means that armor does not appear in PoE2.

I played a bit more today, and I am liking how magic works better in PoE2. In PoE1 my spellcasters were essentially archers who occasionally cast spells. Now they are using all their spells every fight. I may have gone a little overboard in modding how many spells they can cast per encounter. So I will probably pare it down a little. OTOH, casting spells seems to take a long time compared to swinging a sword, so I might not have gone too far after all.

Stealth has also been refined more. Now when you go into stealth mode and approach enemies, you will see a white ring appear around them. This shows the range that they can hear things. You will also see an orange wedge radiating out in front of them. That is where they can see things. That can help you get right up to the edge of detection. There are also items like firecrackers that you can throw while in stealth. The noise they make distracts monsters and gets them to go investigate where they went off. Which can clear a path for you if you want to avoid a fight. Here is an example. The patch of pure red is a trap I detected.

And here is an example of moving around on the world map, and discovering a location

Very encouraging. I enjoyed BG II, especially once I got comfy with the command console and customizing things a bit. And the 'improvements' you highlight also seem to be exactly that to me as well - improvements. Thanks again.

You will probably appreciate The Funnening - Improved Ranger, a mod that tweaks the Ranger class. I think the vanilla Ranger was kind of underpowered, and this improves it. There are a number of these 'Funnening' mods that improve a single class.

Ranger Unleashed - Arcane Archer scaling fix - 2 companions - Gunhawk seems to fix some of the issues with the Arcane Archer's Imbue ability.

I spent a couple hours playing yesterday, and was not really thrilled. I finally got my ship fixed and left the first island. I decided to do some Elder Scrolls style exploring of the world. There was not much to find. There are plenty of islands around. You can only land on the ones that have an anchor icon, which is where you can go ashore. Even then though, almost all of these had nothing but text-based encounters, or simple click on the trees and you get vegetables added to your inventory situations. Only a tiny handful had actual dungeons, and those were tiny, just 3 or 4 rooms.

I did fight pirates a lot. There is a scripted meeting with a pirate ship that happens shortly after you first set sail. This one is friendly, and you get another companion from it, and Orlan Cipher. I tried him out in one of the only dungeons, and I still don't like Ciphers. Like in PoE1, their Perks are all still based on their Focus and Soul Whip, which I still cannot make any sense of. So I stopped using him quickly.

After that I encountered a lot of pirate ships while on the seas. When you encounter a hostile ship the game gives you the option of immediately boarding, fighting a sea battle, or attempting to escape. I tried a naval battle once. It is completely text-based affair, and was really, really underwhelming. Especially given the kind of real naval combat games like Shogun 2 Total War had, or Assassin's Creed Black Flag. Even the original Pirates from the 1980s was better.

So the rest of the time I did boarding actions. The game goes to the tactical screen with your two ships side by side and a wide board linking the two. You start up opposite the board, and so far I have just ran forward to stop the enemy there, and eventually push on to their ship. The NPCs in your crew do join in the fight, though you cannot control them. People can even jump over the sides of the ships rather than using the boarding plank. But I have not figured out how that works yet.

It was interesting at first, but after a while it gets tedious, as it is the exact same map every time, and the fight generally goes the same way because of it. I am sure the maps will change as I face pirates with different kinds of ships. So far I have only fought those with a Dhow.

There is a lot of overhead with ship management. You have to assign crew members to different tasks on the ship. Each sailor has skills in different areas, so you have to juggle them around to make the most of them. You have to assign food and drink to them. It is not enough to simply have the stuff in your inventory. You have to physically move it to a queue on the ship management screen. Otherwise you crew will starve while you are literally sitting on a mountain of rice.

You can easily buy more of this stuff when you go to ports. When you are on the strategy map you just have to click on the port, and the screen will come up to buy supplies. But it is a lot of overhead which I personally do not give a crap about. I wanted to play a game about adventuring, exploring dungeons, slaying monsters, grinding my toons, Ph3R M3 N00b$!, all that good fantasy rpg stuff. Playing a ship captain simulator is not my idea of a good time.

The game points you to the capital city in the region once you leave the first island. I think I am just going to head straight there, and see if that opens up some quests, or something to point me to an actual dungeon I can raid.

Hmm, hope things look up for in the game. It sounds too like it may be pushing you in linear direction. And we are rather spoiled by the free-flowing open world exploration of TES.

TBH, right now it does really seem to be a free-flowing open world. Just one with nothing in it to find.

I made it to the capital city of Neketaka today, and started exploring it. It is just like the cities in the Baldur's Gate games, PoE1, and the like. Lots of places, people, and little quests around the city. There are a lot of bounty quests. It turns out I did a lot of them already, by killing pirates along the journey to get to the city.

I also hired a generic adventurer, and used him to create one of January's pals from the Knights of Nerddom - Ryo. He is a Rogue. I am getting to know the class through him. They have some neat new Perks in PoE2.

Are islands randomly generated or will they be exactly the same on your next playthrough?

Neketaka looks really big, from the map I've seen online.

The islands are fixed. There is an Map here showing them all. So far I have explored the south-west corner of the map. Then bypassed Katapu Channel and went straight for Neketaka.

Neketaka itself is huge. It is much bigger than Defiance Bay was in PoE1.

I did some more exploring in and around Neketaka over the last few days, and had more fun. As I said before, the city is huge. Something like 6 or 7 separate districts. I found an undercity of several levels, and a couple of explorable tombs. Of course there are tons of the 'normal' city quests, steal this, find medicine to these people, arrange with pirates to feed those people, and so on.

I have noticed that even in the pure dungeons, there are fewer monsters than normal. It seems like the direction for the game is smaller dungeons, fewer battles. Which is too bad, as that is the most fun for me. Especially given all the per rest stuff like spells has been done away with. It is easier than ever to do huge dungeon crawls now. In fact, I have only had to rest a handful of times so far.

There is a map maker in the port district who gives you a quest to map out parts of the Deadfire, and name the islands there. You can also buy a spyglass there, which I did in spite of how pricey it was. I have read that it helps you avoid ambushes on the high seas, especially of pirates lurking in wait within wrecks.

I also found another companion - Ydwin. She is a Cipher or Rogue. I picked Rogue, and retired Ryo. Though now that I look her up, she is classified as a Sidekick. This is one of the new things in PoE2. The game has a handful of companions. What I read is that you can only have yourself + 4 Companions in your party. So the cap is 5 characters instead of the normal 6.

I am not really sure what the difference is other than that. Ydwin has a uinque voice and dialogue. She seems to be involved in a lot of quests in two of the DLCs. But it looks like she does not have a personal quest. Most companions do.

I found another full Companion in the Watershapers Guild named Tekēhu. He seems to be a Druid/Chanter. I was utterly unimpressed with him, so left him to his own devices.

I have found some console commands which have been changed since the first game.

Shift + T = Teleports you to your cursor location. Use it with the console closed.

GiveItem now does what AddItem did.

Fog now does what NoFog did = removes the fog of war from the map you are currently on.

OpenCharacterCreation = this is handy. It allows you to recreate your character from scratch, which the retraining option in the game does not even allow (That just sets you back to 1st level, but still leaves you with the appearance, race, and class you originally began with). This starts completely over. The downside is that you lose all your experience points, and any special Perks you picked up along the way. But you can get the first back with the AddExperienceToLevel command, which has not changed. The others can be added back through the console too.

It does not look like there are many options for a Kind Wayfarer Paladin. So far I have come across only a single one. So I might try resetting January back to a Knight Of The Storm after all.

January explores an island on the strategy map

An example of the stealth system. The white ring is the hearing radius of the skeleton, the orange wedge is its sight

Xoti tries not to lie

Spleckt!

Battling the undead

Iron Man

Revenant

Stormcrow

Nice shots. Those detection aides for stealthing make great sense. It is nice being able to pause combat to issue orders and control how quickly combat proceeds. A necessity really if you're controlling a group of NPCs. No doubt which one is Stormcrow in that last shot!

I just finished (mostly) a mod that replaces all the 'watercolor' pictures with real artwork from various portraits packs or otherwise stolen from the internet. It was a real pain going through every picture, resizing and renaming them all. But it looks so much better.

I still have to go through the game and see how appropriate they are for the characters. A lot of the watercolors are so poorly done that I literally cannot tell the race or gender of the individuals. I looked them all upon the Pillars wiki, and that helped with a lot of them. But some did not have entries, so I just had to guess.

Finally there are about 2 dozen from the expansions that I could not replace, as they are just too weird to find anything appropriate to replace them with.

I just found out that Sidekicks do not exceed the 5 character limit to your party. It seems that Sidekicks are just Companions without a quest or as much unique dialogue.

I am still playing PoE2. I am enjoying it, now that I know what to expect. I really like the setting, which is a big departure from the standard Merry Old England of so many CRPGs. It is part Maori, part Italian, part African, part Japanese. The music is just pure awesomesauce. The actual gameplay within battles is an improvement from the past. I just wish there were more battles.

I have taken to using the Ctrl + T command to teleport around when sailing. That allows me to cover the big, empty spaces of the ocean without wasting much time in the real world, which really drove me nuts playing the game the normal way. It allows me to skip over the islands with nothing on them, to find the few where there is something to actually do.

The capital city of Neketaka is amazing! It is jam-packed with quests to do, and has a number of hidden dungeons to explore.

I am still playing January as a Kind Wayfarer Paladin. But I decided to use the console to give her some of the Lightning-based powers from the Knights of the Storm mod. This way I get the best of both worlds. I still get dialogue options based on being the Wayfarer, and I still get lightning in her games. I started with just the Avenging Storm power, which is like the lightning cloak spell from Skyrim. It does shock damage to enemies around you. I will also be giving her the lightning bolt power that comes with Knights of the Storm too soon, once she reaches the same level it normally becomes available to the KotS.

I also discovered some handy graphics tweaks. The visual effects can become overwhelming in a fight. But in the Graphics options there is a slider call VFX Pause Opacity. What that means it that it makes the visual effects transparent whenever you pause. If you put it all the way over to the left they disappear entirely. There is also an Occlusion Opacity option too. What it does is make your characters visible with a white outline around them whenever they walk 'behind' a wall that would otherwise obscure them. Both are handy little tools to help see what is going on.


January disarms a ruffian

Don't look back!

Boom!

Jan is called the Stormcrow for a reason

Battling the reptilian hordes

Haha, Lopov is right – nice Jack Sparrow outfit.

The only Rolling Flame that really hurts is the one you don’t see!

Stormcrow opens up a can of shock and awe!

Jan started out with the pirate outfit - a Vailian Frock Coat - but had to move up to some more serious armor.


Here is an example of an ordinary island (most of them are like this)

Walking up to that little stand of trees and clicking on it gives you some fruit

Down in the corner of the island is an Abandoned Village and a little pond

Clicking on the pond gives you some water

Clicking on the village gives you to option to search it

It always takes hours to search any place

This one did not yield anything. Sometimes you get a weapon or piece of armor. That's it for the entire island. You never leave the Strat Map.

Interesting, so it's point'n'click, I thought that as you click on the village or on something else that can be interacted with, that the view switches to 3rd person.

Can combat take place from this perspective?

Thanks for the screenshots, SubRosa. Unless I'm missing something, exploration seems a bit. . . underwhelming?

It is all point and click and text messages. The only time it switches from this strat map to the 3d isometric view where you fight is when you find an actual dungeon, or a surface encounter. The surface encounters are usually part of a bounty quest. It will be a small outdoor area, with the monsters in the center. It will be the only fight on the map. The dungeons tend to be 3 - 4 rooms, again, with one group of monsters to fight at the end, and maybe one or two lone monsters in the hallways as you get there.

That is how probably 90% of the islands are. The remainder seem to be part of the main quest or the faction quests, which have more meat on their bones. There is a large pirate castle that you can explore in Fort Deadlight. There is a little pirate island that is basically a small city with 4 areas which you go to. The capital of Neketaka is a sprawling city, bigger than the city of Baldur's Gate. That has tons of city quests, and several dungeons.




The whole exploration side of things left me really unenthused. I spent hours sailing around, finding only nothing-burger islands like that. What I have started doing is using the teleport cheat = Shift + T = to quickly teleport around the strat map of the islands, so I can see where there is something that might be worth looking at. Then when I do land I still use Shift + T to quickly get to the places of interest and back. Otherwise entire days in game time can pass when you explore a single island with no encounters.

I uploaded my first mod to the Nexus - Arcane Veil Modal. It simply changes Arcane Veil from a spell you have to cast to a modal ability that you can have always on if you like.

Gog now has both Pillars games on sale for 50% off. If I haven't completely ruined everyone's desire to play them.

I am still playing Pillars 2, and in spite of the previous gripes, I am still enjoying it, now that I have a better idea of what to expect.

I am finally figuring out some of the changes in the combat system. Pillars 2 has a Penetration stat for all weapons and spells. When you attack someone, you compare this to the armor stat of the enemy. If your Penetration is higher than the armor, you do full damage. If it is lower, you do less damage, by a magnitude of how much lower it is. If your Penetration is way higher, you do increased damage than normal. More on it here in the third post down

I have also mentioned Power Pools. Your active abilities are all used by spending the Power Points from your class. There is also an Empower mechanic that everyone can use. You click on that number 3 in the Hud, surrounded by yellow flames, and that starts the Empowerment. I have not quite figured it all out, but you can Empower a spell or attack, and it will do more damage. If you click on your character portrait underneath, it will refresh some of your Power Points. Every time you use Empowerment, the number drops, until it is 0 and you cannot do it anymore. Resting refreshes it. I think the number goes up as you level.

I have also been doing some experimenting with January. I rearranged some of her abilities, and have been using just a regular sword with no shield. Doing this with the One Handed ability gives you extra Critical Hits. Basically a Critical is any time your attack roll is 100 over the enemies defense. Then you do extra damage of course. January has been getting a lot of Crits this way, and because a one handed sword is faster than a two handed, she hits more often. So far it seems to be balancing out with the two hander.

From a min/maxing point of view, it looks like this would work better with a Fighter class. They get some abilities that give you bonuses to your attack roll (which will help you get up to that magical 100 mark for a critical).

I have even considered re-rolling January as a Paladin/Fighter, to get those extra abilities. But I don't know that I really want to do that.

I'm following your PoE observations, because this is one of the games I will try in the future, but I'll start with PoE 1. I already tried it a few years back, but it didn't really gripe me back then. But I like what you describe in PoE 2 - sea exploring, the big town with lots of quests, etc.



I got some odd thoughts reading about penetration but thanks for explaining anyway.

When I saw that Penetration was a statistic, I immediately imagined that the developers must have been male...

The Fighter class has an ability called Penetrating Strike at 2nd or 3rd power level (which I think it class level 5), which gives you a bonus of 3 points of penetration. Once I get that, I just ignore Knockdown.

There is also something called a Full Attack vs. a Primary Attack. It seems to be for Dual Wielding only. There are more specifics on it here. As I understand it, an ability that uses a Full Attack works for both your dual-wielded weapons. While an ability that uses a Primary Attack only works on your main hand weapon.

So for example that Penetrating Strike ability I mentioned is a Full Attack, so it would work with both your weapons

Still playing Pillars. I picked up Maia and Pallegnia in my party a few days ago.

Maia is a Ranger, whom you can multiclass with a Rogue. I tried that at first, but found I did not like it much. It seemed like I wasn't really using the Rogue abilities to good effect with her. So I went back and tried her as a pure Ranger. That seems to be working much better. She puts out a steady amount of damage throughout every battle. Usually 30 points every shot, which is quite respectable.

She is a Gunhawk, a special NPC only class that gets a bonus to the reload speed of firearms and crossbows. But even with that, and the Gunner ability (which again gives you a bonus to reload speed), the amount of time it takes to reload an arquebus is just ridiculous. She spent about three-quarters of the first battle just reloading.

For a while I left her with the arquebus and gave her a war bow as a backup. She would make the first shot of the battle with the arquebus, then switch to the bow for the rest of the fight. But then she picked up an Exceptional level bow, and I noticed that it does the same damage. So I just gave up on the arquebus all together and went pure bow. She is really shining with it.

I also found that you cannot modify your animal companion's stats through the console the same as you can with the regular companions. I usually give animal companions a Constitution of 30 so they can survive the battles. So instead I created a mod that raised the stats of her bird companion. You could do that with the other animal companions, but I suspect the changes would apply to all animal companions in the game, not just yours. Which might make fighting enemy Rangers really difficult.

I am playing Pallegina as a Paladin/Fighter. She is working out as a really tanky tank that way. The Fighter class gives her abilities like Armored Grace (which lowers your armor's recovery penalty) and Penetrating Strike (which gives you more penetration. I use her Flames of Devotion Paladin ability for melee attacks, and the Penetrating Strike for when she uses a bow. The Fighter's Disciplined Barrage also gives her a bonus to hit (and thusly to Crit). Finally the Fighter's Weapon Specialization means more damage for her proficient weapons.

I have gotten more experience with multiclass characters now. It is a little tricky, because you get roughly the same amount of abilities when you level up, but you have to spread them out across two classes instead of one. So you really need to pick and choose very carefully. You also get less power points in each class than you would if you went single class. So you might not be able to rely upon one class' powers for a long fight. With Pallegina it is working out, because she is primarily melee, and she can use either Flames of Devotion or Penetrating Strike with her sword.

I also learned that with two paladins in the group, their zealous auras don't stack with one another if they are the same. So I started having January do the accuracy aura, and Pallegina do the Endurance one. Combined with buffs from my Priest, everyone typically has lots of bonuses in every fight.



Avery sent over the Stormcrow armor

Not hard to tell which one is January

This was just ewww...

Sending off the boarding party

Sacred Lotus seeds

This is one creepy-looking place

Neat. Jan is the one with the short circuit. Eww is right - even the name 'cave grub' sounds pretty yuck.

I managed to change Maia to an Arcane Archer subclass. I am really liking it. Every other level or so you get a new Imbue ability. These are basically you imbuing your arrows with a spell. The first one is Minoletta's Minor Missiles. The second is Web. The third is Fireball, and so on. Basically you fire your arrow and it does its normal damage. And the associated spell goes off as well.

Here is an Imbue: Minoletta's Minor Missiles. You can see the arrow itself did 41. The additional fire damage of 7 added to it is from one of the Paladin's Flames of Devotion auras (when a Paladin hits with Flames of Devotion, it gives your entire party a bonus). Then beneath that you can see the damage results for the Minoletta's Minor Missles spell that came with it. So it basically pushed 50 points of damage into 100 points of damage.

The downside is that the Imbue powers are expensive in Power points, so you cannot use a lot of them in a fight. I might mod them to make them cheaper.

The other downside is that an Arcane Archer has a -5 Accuracy penalty if they are not shooting with an Imbued arrow. Other things can make up for the loss. For example Jan's Paladin zealous aura gives a +5 to Accuracy to the party. But it is a downside.

Edit: I guess it is not that bad of a penalty overall. Here is a screenshot of an arrow without using an Imbue ability. In the Accuracy section you can see the -5 for Arcane Archer. But there are a lot more bonuses.

The other penalty to Arcane Archers is they have -15 hit points. So they are a bit of a glass cannon. But that is not too big a deal really, given that your health is going to be up around 200 in no time anyway.

I have tried looking around the game files to mod out the -5 Accuracy for Arcane Archers, but I cannot find the data for the classes anywhere. Nor can I find anything online that mentions it.