the more i play the more i can't believe trees and structures don't become transparent when you're fighting behind them. it happens so often.

right now i'm feeling the game's presentation could have done with a little modernizing.

@honkalot: guess I'm not going that route, I'm playing a wizard and none of my characters are using 2h weapons so that mean fuck all to me.

There are three possibilities. You kill Kolsc and lose lots of rep with Gilded Vale and gain some tiny Defiance Bay rep. You kill Raedric and gain huge Gilded Vale rep and lose a little Defiance Bay rep. Or you kill both of the SOB's cause they deserve it and you still gain a little Gilded Vale rep just not a ton and you don't get any Defiance Bay rep either way. Either way you get the sword cause Raedric has it on him if you kill him and he gives it to you if you just kill Kolsc. The main implications come in the "story" department.

@karkarov: the only character involved that I like and think deserves a chance is the animancer, even if she is fucking crazy. So I think I am siding with a certain someone.

The way you end that quest has ripercussions also on a later quest. Just remember to talk with a certain guy in the inn in Twin Helms, he's quite easy to miss because he's not a normal "named" character.

Kinda curious but is there a way I can give myself money? I heard people were using console commands to replace stat bugs but it disables achievements. It's steam so who cares.

My characters are around lvl 3-4 and I'm not really diggin the default companions. I had the fun idea of building a party setup similar to the friends I play with on FF14. So I kinda want to replace all these standard companions with my own builds but don't want to wait forever and get one by one.

@seikenfreak: While it may take a while to get the ball rolling, eventually you will end up drowning in copper so if you just tough it out with some of the pre-gens for a bit you'll be able to make a full party of custom characters without much trouble.

@jesna: Well the cost goes up as the levels go so I figured I'd never be at a point where I could just afford to hire 4 people out of pocket. At roughly what level range should I expect to be able to blow that kind of money? Just unlocked the Stronghold as well so spending money on that as well.

Also kinda wanted to learn the party members from the ground up. Like having the Priest or Wizard and they've got a dozen spells and I have no idea how I should be using any of them. Seems overwhelming.

Man if I could elect not to fight Shadows and Spectres again...

@seikenfreak: Hmm, I'm not sure exactly when I reached a point where money was mostly trivial, but I can assure you that your profits will grow much faster than the cost of a new dude or two. Other than maybe the wardens hut or the inn there isn't a lot in the stronghold that really demands to be built immediately, so you can probably allocate most of your funds towards your new party first.

Not a bad idea to learn the character mechanics via party building. Priests are fairly straightforward since they get access to all of their spells each level, but it is a good plan to choose wizard spells based on what you want them to contribute the party (disabling, AoE damage, etc.).

Also, if you haven't picked up all of the NPCs yet it may be worth your while to go look for them. Everyone you like enough to use will save you a party member to purchase. There should be one for every class except Rogue, Barbarian, and Monk.

More questions. I've really been trying to get into this game but isn't quite hooking me. I don't feel.. excited? Lustful? to play it but I feel like I'm forcing myself to because I should like this game and there are moments where the sunlight breaks through.. And I think most of that is just because of weird ways the game plays or things I don't understand or feel frustrated by. I've thought about writing a post on here talking about this but I feel like it wouldn't really do anything good at this point. The stuff has to be my fault.

Where can I go to level/practice combat?

I understand experience can come from filling out bestiary. I've cleared all the dungeons and fields up to this point as far as I know. I imagine I've done most of the side quests pre-Defiance Bay and even some in it. My characters are mostly level 4-5 (I was able to replace all the default companions) and I seem to be at the part of the story where it wants me to go to Dyrwood Village. I tried going in that direction to test the difficulty and my party was slaughtered by a group of Feral Druids in one area and then like five Drakes in the other area. Do previous areas not refresh monsters at some point?

Is magic just a giant pain in the ass in this?

I have a Wizard and I feel like I can never use magic because almost every good spell is big non-foe AoEs. I've never been in a situation where I could control the enemy enough to isolate them so I could cast. In general, I feel like there are an overwhelming amount of spells (with my Priest as well) and I can't possibly keep track of all potential options and.. I don't know. I don't know how to put it into words the weird frustration I am having with magic. I need more practice with it but.. *See question 1

What I think I need is a video guide on various combat tactics. Seems all the videos about combat are just about stats and I have to find Let's Plays to watch people play to learn tricks, but I also don't want to watch stuff beyond where I'm at and it kind of needs to be relevant to my party setup (Paladin, Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, Wizard, Priest). I had what felt like a small breakthrough moment today that made combat more fun and smoother when I switched my Rogue to a ranged weapon and used it to pull enemies from stealth and immediately followed it with Wounded Strike from Ranger and they could almost kill things before it even reached the party. So I guess I'm finding it hard to apply other common tactics from other games into this. My Paladin doesn't have provoke type abilities yet. The Wizards spells are too big, too slow, or have zero casting range so he has to be in it's face to do it and can't stay at the back. Also, the spells don't usually target an enemy and are just "cast on this point" so I can't really use them while an enemy is being pulled to the party.

Just weird issues with the game that are keeping me from really sinking my teeth into it. I you could point me in the direction of some good instructional videos on magic usage or combat tactics etc. Or a quality Let's Play. Been watching some of Mr. Odd as it came up high on the search and he isn't annoying.

@seikenfreak: The bestiary xp is pretty minor, most of your xp in this game comes from just doing quests. You are a bit low for the druids for someone new to the combat systems, just bumming around defiance bay and clearing that place out should easily get your party to lvl 7, which will make things significantly easier. No previous enemies don't refresh monsters, tho some new monsters may appear in relation to specific quests.

Wizards require some care to use for sure, but that's because a lot of their effects can be battle swinging. You don't "control" the enemy in this game so much, try to get away from this mindset. The main "tanking" mechanic there is is engagement, and fighters can get an extra feat that gives them an extra engagement slot, every one can get one more from default perks too. Enemies really really don't like breaking the engagements that someone has against them, unless they have disengage abilities. So the main way you can control encounters in this game is positioning, using narrow spaces or doorways to funnel enemies, sticking your designated "tank" in front of the party so he gets the engages on enemies coming in etc.

For wizard spells, again it's funnily enough a lot about positioning. Lets say, in a rough example, you have your front line mushing faces with their front line; you want to cast Fan of Flames a very devastating dmg wise aoe spell, if your mage is behind the party he will hit the target; but you can move him to the side of the fight and angle the cone in such way that its side goes perpendicular to the fight and the rest into the enemy, thus you can hit most of them, but not your own dudes. Yes for some of their spells mages need to get a bit close up. If you want the spells top come out faster on your wizard give him lighter armor and don't have him auto attacking for the part where you want his spells, otherwise you have to wait for attack cool down and the recovery from armor too and then the spell cast itself. You can cast AoE spells as the enemy is being pulled to party, it a good tactic in fact, you just have to approximately see where the enemy is going to be coming in and use the bigger aoe spells that will cover their area of approach for sure, or directional spells like say rolling flame for example.

Even wizards have a selection of foe only spells, tho they tend to come at later levels more then early on, you can always use those more, i like stuff like say combusting wounds, that sets up for other party's aoe effects and wizard's own blast ability. Finally I don't know if you are aware or not but just in case: for spells that are not explicitly foe aoe, the yellow area of the spell cast will not affect your allies, this yellow area comes from your INT bonus of the wizard, so stacking int on him will make the overall aoe bigger while not making it bigger vs your dudes, making those aoe spells much more flexible, as it becomes possible just to cast fireball right in the fight as long as your own dudes are in the yellow zone.

Priests are more of a buffer/debuffer type caster compared to wizards, and a lot of their spells are foe only or ally only in the first place. That's honestly what they are best at and what they should be focused on more. Many of their spells are also situational, like healing or removing of debuffs, so you definitely don't need to remember most of them at all times, they are just options to be aware of, only some will see regular use.

If you want to be less concerned with friendly fire of wizards, then later on there are druid and cypher NPC companions, or you can just make custom ones yourself. Their selection of spells/abilities tend to have more foe only effects compared to wizards that would make you life easier as well.

PS: If you want to practice combat but have not explored it yet, the place beneath your stronghold is a way to go.

@tennmuerti: Thanks for the info. That is roughly about what I know on magic already. I did learn about the yellow AoE zone yesterday while watching that Let's Play so that helped a bunch. So using your example of the Fan of Flames, I find that my encounters and position don't end up as clear cut as that. Current usual encounter has been going with Rogue scouting ahead, pulling some enemies (which has worked well but is also getting kind of railed on lately somehow), running her behind my party and my Paladin picks up the group. My Fighter is just off to the side and behind, in a sort of spearhead fashion. The enemies end up wrapping around the tank and sort of mingling into the rest of the party as our groups kind of mesh together with some enemies wanted to go after back row members etc. So it makes it nearly impossible to use a cone move like that unless it's just on one or two out of the 4+ enemies. I guess I'm looking for tactics related to this type of stuff. Order of engagement, suggested formations, good ranged and spell pulling combos etc.

I also feel like the Ranger companion is.. useless? or I'm just not sure how to best use it. Mine has a lion and it seems super weak defense wise. It also doesn't attack with the Ranger so you have to manually click it's little icon and attack something.

Good news is I decided to look in that Endless Paths area (I assumed it was something more difficult for later) and ended up doing pretty good on the first two floors (Had to avoid the big Drake and minions battle). At least I think it's that area. The section that was behind the doorway that previously had a white glowing barrier. That got me some more practice and I feel like I'm slowly getting a feel for how to manage my party and experimenting with spells etc. It's bed time now though so I'll check out the two exits tomorrow.

@seikenfreak: Well off the top of my head I wouldn't make an arrow formation with the front line, if they are just in a line the wrapping around and meshing should happen less in theory. For cone attacks like Fan of Flames you don't really need to get all of the enemy for it to be effective, even hitting 2-3 dudes is enough as it is very high damage, it's already gonna be doing a ton of damage to more then 1 enemy. Getting perfect AoE cone effects is gonna be difficult there is no way around it, tho it should be easier with a straight circle aoe like fireball.

Honestly I don't even use my wizard for direct aoe damage like that often, only form time to time. More often i find myself casting stuff like Combusting Wounds (foe only) followed by the basic wizard ability - Arcane Assault, Priest using Interdiction at the start then casting say Iconic Projection. The effect is enemies are debuffed, my initial damage is healed, enemies have taken a ton of AoE dmg (combusting wounds + iconic projection + 2x AA is frequently enough to clear up a ton of basic enemies) and will continue to take extra dmg. It's been my staple for a while now.

Ranger companion is not a self sufficient fighter for sure, its an extra body and it significantly buffs the rangers attacks when they are attacking the same thing, outside of that what they are good for is you can get some extra abilities for them like pin, essentially a knockdown.

@seikenfreak: Is your fighter a tank or are you using him as a dps? Because you should really put him in front with your paladin, especially since the Defender modal ability grants him 2 more engagements, while the paladin is limited to the basic one plus eventually another one from a talent and possibly from unique enchantments on your weapon. As Tennmuerti already told you, I would not use the arrowhead formation, try experimenting with some custom ones.
Put a couple of points in stealth to your front-line party members, so you can directly get close enough to enemies that you can shoot with the rogue to pull without having to make her run behind.

For the feral druids and the drakes in Stormwall Gorge and Searing Falls don't worry, you're a bit underleveled for the former encounter and the latter area. Just go into Defiance Bay, there are a ton of quests in the various districts. You'll tear through those two areas when you'll come back. If you really want to still avoid Defiance Bay for now just run East in Stormwall Gorge and reach the exit there, you'll be able to travel to Dryford Village which is very much doable at lvl 5.

Regarding the Wizard, you'll get a vast array of spells leveling up and looting more grimoires, so don't worry if you don't like the ones you have now. Together with the Cipher they get the best crowd control in the game; opening an encounter with a well placed Confusion (it's a level 4 spell, so you'll get it at level 7) is extremely powerful, especially if you are properly positioned when you cast it. But even at low levels you have some good cc spells between Slicken (which apparently got nerfed to apply its effect only once, but still) and the Priest's Repulsing Seal; prone enemies are basically dead enemies

For your rogue, since i seem to understand that she's ranged, get the Penetrating Shots modal talent and give her a blunderbuss (there is a very very nice one as a reward for a side quest in Dryford Village). You'll end up oneshotting most of the enemies while Sneak Attack is in effect.

I only used a little the ranger but they seem quite weak, and the animal companion is more of an hindrance than an helpful tool. Rogues do way more dps as ranged and the cipher has some amazing spells, so unless you have a personal liking and absolutely want one in your party i would toss him/her out of the party and get someone else in (druid if you want more aoe damage, cipher for more cc, chanter for buffs/debuffs, barbarian for melee aoe, etc)

My party is level 8 and I haven't even touched most of the main story stuff in Act 2 (just went into the tower in Heritage Hill). The game continues to be exactly what I wanted it to be. I guess my random observations would be that the Ranger class doesn't seem as great as some of the others, the Druid is more of a counterpart to the Wizard than the Priest, and yo Ciphers are still great.

Ciphers are indeed great. I was rolling with Aloth cause hey you need a wizard but I just replaced him with a Cipher I made because I wanted to see if that would be more effective. I liked the spells and having an additional attacker.

I have a crossbow that I start out the fight with for at least one good shot then two handed weapons on her. The spells are really cool and useful for setting up other characters. I use the flanked one to set up sneak attacks for my other ranged rogue for example. And since she's up in combat more I find I can use some of the say, cone attack abilities with friendly fire more.

The monk is really fun to use and I love when they start getting wailed on but then go nuts. The ability that launches an enemy away makes me laugh every time and is very powerful. I've hit giant bosses with it. Lighting them up with ranged attacks as they lie helpless was a big highlight.

Barbarian continues to be great for crowd control. You can upgrade the Carnage ability to get a lot of hits on multiple enemies with every attack. Rogue seems essential for me. I'm sure they're good melee, but they are easy to use as a scout with a bow mostly and are putting down a lot of enemies like that for me. They get sneak attack fairly often if you set them up with knockdowns and other statuses.

So I'm rolling with a main character barbarian, Eder for a fighter, a monk, a rogue, a cipher, Durance for a Priest. A bit worried I don't have enough magic but it's working right now at least. I have a focused tank and then multiple other guys who can get in fights and get stronger if they take some damage too. I like using the Priest and his buff can become a very flexible spell.

Just got my keep. This game is great so far. I really like the combat and choices you get now that things are opening up.

@seikenfreak I kind of had the same problem with my Wizard. That's why I went Cipher and so far I like that more because they have spells without friendly fire and also if they end up in melee combat they aren't screwed. So you can use the abilities they do have with friendly fire more frequently too because you can be right up close to enemies. You can also set them up with ranged weapons and that works well. I do the same scout ahead move with a rogue I have that you do and I use my Cipher to cover my rogue as they run back with a crossbow. Works well. If I really need to I can also use my Priest's Halt spell to freeze an enemy in place that might be pursuing my rogue. I'd get creative if that's a problem you are having.

I'm not sure if you are using a Ranger over a Rogue but I think you should go Rogue. It is a very nice class to use ranged. Makes for a great scout. The animal companion doesn't sound all that useful.

@artisanbreads: @cagliostro88: Party setup is Paladin (Tank), Fighter (DPS/Off-tank), Rogue (Scouter/Puller/Thief/Backstabs should be cool), Ranger (Just more ranged, too low level for it to stand out yet I guess), Wizard (Because I want to use magic because it looks cool), Priest (Because a party should have a healer). My Rogue is a mix of range and melee. I only started using the ranged weapon because you can't get anywhere near stuff to actually Sneak Attack things, then I read the Sneak Attack/Backstab thread elsewhere on here. And my Rogue just got the Invisibility skill thing last night.

My party is setup this way to roughly mimic what a group of friends play as in FF14. Actually, it's not very accurate now that I look over it again haha. But these are the class types I wanted. Something very traditional and I'm conceptually familiar with. I never really played D&D stuff (even though this isn't D&D based) so I have no idea what something like a "Cipher" is. I will say one of the things I'm slightly saddened by is that the classes don't entirely align, so far, with how I think of certain classes. That's more my own fault I guess. I do wish there were more initial class choices (even though they just act as basic framework) and it was more structured. Like a Priest is a light armor, heavy-healer, a Cleric is a medium armor, melee light-healer light-buffer/debuff, a Wizard used X element(s) of spells, a Necromancer (Animancer?) uses X type of spells, a Knight is heavy armor, heavy weapons, a Paladin is heavy defense, a Gladiator is mixed bag, a Fencer/Duelist is light armor, light weapons etc etc. Mostly because there are so many spell and skill choices, I wish it was narrowed down a bit to streamline it. Also, that I have to spend skill points on stuff like Dual Wielding, or Two-Handed weapons, or various other traits when I wish they were just picked up front when you make the character blah blah blah. I'm just ranting.

I'm also kind of bothered by the whole health vs. endurance thing. I don't know why but it just irks me that I can't quite heal health with my Priest. I see that it's more of a buffer/debuffer. It's weird to explain because I realize how dumb it sounds as I'm saying it, but I wish they would've just made a Fatigue meter and a Health meter. That way you can't just go on forever, but you also aren't just getting annihilated by an enemy and can't do anything about it. The game is all setup to use it's systems and it kind of makes sense and seems complete and functional, I just don't understand why you'd do it this way vs the more standard system I've known in games forever. I never played any of these old D&D type games either though.

Something else I want is some kind of enemy list during an encounter. Maybe top left of the UI you have a list of each enemy you are currently engaged with and their HP. Then you could hover over one in the top left, if it has low health and you want to know which one that is for example, and it'll highlight it on the field. It's a little weird that I have to highlight the specific enemy and look at tiny dots to see it's HP. Larger fights turn into a clusterfuck of characters, creatures and spells and it can be hard to see whats going on. Maybe there is a way to do this in the options that I'm not aware of yet.

Oh, another wish list item: I want the spell/skill action bar to be organized into healing/buff/debuff/ability or Freeze/Burn/Shock/Corrosive type etc. Pretty much every time I use magic I find myself combing over every spell again to figure out what does what.

Just to clarify, the whole time I'm writing this, I'm thinking of reasons why things are the way they are. I'm not saying the systems or structure is broken.. just that they don't suite my particular tastes I guess? These are all just the thoughts that run through my head whenever I play it.

So anyway, played more yesterday, cleared more floors in the Endless Paths area. Eventually left and went back to Defiance Bay and started doing random quests around there. Everyone still around lvl 4-5. Guess I'll continue doing that today.

@seikenfreak: Cipher is a little hard to describe; it's kind of a wizard without any restrictions on how many times you can cast spells. You can pick one up in Dyrford I think, and she gains focus as she does damage which allows her to use her abilities which are almost all physic attacks on enemies (domination, instilling fear, etc.) or physic buffs/connections with allies (buffs to will and the like for allies or a buff to the cipher for attacking the same target as an ally.) I've used her but I haven't entirely gotten a feel for the best use of her abilities yet. She's also got a decent amount of stealth though doesn't get the backstab bonus that the rogue gets.

The monk is similar in that the abilities are tied to Wounds which are acquired as the monk takes damage, but I haven't used a monk yet so I'm not too sure about the monk's abilities other than how they are powered.

The Cipher is a warrior mage, basically. They can be ranged if you want. Anyways, your spells are only reliant on your focus to be cast and you get focus through basic attacks. Focus carries over from fight to fight so you don't have to just be throwing this class in the fray. The abilities seem pretty versatile. So far I really like it. As I said before, I set mine up with a powerful ranged attack to start with a crossbow then that fuels the magic to come after. I usually save magic for more dangerous encounters so when you have some stockpiled you can use your Cipher like a regular wizard hanging back and slinging a few spells.

Monk is a warrior who you throw into the fray, get some damage on, and then can pop off a bunch of powerful abilities. The Wounds don't carry between fights so this is pretty much how you play the monk. The abilities I only have a couple of so far but they are very quick to use (basically instant when you have the Wounds to power a given move) and powerful. They can really swing a fight quickly. I'm sure they branch out from the initial attacks to have more use as well.

I have a question regarding a quest called "Changing of the guard".

So I'm currently diving deep into this on PlayStation and I was wondering if anybody here has recommendation as to when to tackle the DLC(s)? Game is great btw!

@frodobaggins: Generally speaking any time around level 7 onwards but if you leave it later there is an optional scaling system which seemed fine to me as I did it with an end level party.

It adds new party members so opening them up earlier could be fun.

@hayt: I'm currentely sitting at level 6 so maybe I'll clear a few more side quests up in defiance bay and then move onto it.

Do characters that arnt in your active party gain experience? I think the answer is no but I want to make sure.

@frodobaggins: they gain reduced experience. Maybe like 75% of it? You can bolster this though by sending benched party members on adventures which make them unavailable for a few turns (stronghold turns advance as quests are progressed or completed) but when finished give you a reward (normally an item and/or reputation) and that character XP.