I have no idea why, but for some reason each time Durance shots down Berathian Priest in Raedric's Hold, I immediately have this quote from "Conan" in my head, and start laughing like an idiot.

Hi fellow nerds with (self-proclaimed) refined tastes,

I'm in the middle of my first Deadfire playthrough and having a TOTAL BLAST.
I'm playing turnbased POTD, because I thought I could handle it.
Then I got brutally humbled right away, came to reddit to whine about it, then got over it and now THE GAME IS INCREDIBLE.
One of the very best crpgs I ever played and I played more than it's healthy to admit.

So, the actual real question.

I can't decide on a party composition.
I am happy to switch companions around a bit, but the game can get a bit punishing and annoying if you switch too often and kind of rewards committing a bit. Also, the high difficulty kind of requires some optimization and build around (less than I expected, still sailing smoothly now, even with a few questionable picks here and there).
There are lots of very interesting companions, but I feel that to get the best out of my first playthrough the best choice is to choose a few and "bond" with them (in a metaphorical non-cringe way). also the banter between companions seems to actually evolve in abeautifully complex way the longer you spend time around them (or maybe I'm just overexcited)

Any suggestion is greatly appreciated.

My party, lvl 9-10

MC: Cypher\rogue amaua (both no subclass), kind of optimized for ranged striking. max might, low costitution and resolve, above average everything else. I discovered the rod proficiency ability (which is really op in turnbased I think) and begin warping the build around it. AOE rogue special debuff strikes are really really strong, so strong that you don't need most of the damaging cypher spells. And since charmed spells have been seriously debuffed from POE1 (good choice, they were gamebreaking), now I'm not sure which spells to pick.

I think a good simple strat could be

1 MC (striker, cc, some debuff)

2 dedicated tank --> EDER, ALWAYS EDER, only thing I-m sure about

3 frontliner, offtank, melee damage

4 dedicated offensive full caster (lots of heavy cc, some utility, some single target nukes)

5 versatile caster (mainly CC, some healing, some support, maybe even some melee?)

right now I feel the best version of this could be

1 MC (CC striker with rods)
2 tank eder
3 frontline witch Serafen (I gave him 2 good sabres with proficiency, but I'm not sure I built him right, at all)
4 nukelord Aloth (again, not sure of how I built him, took me a while to understand the new system. I made him as offensive and trigger happy as I managed). Also, I love aloth as character, especially alongside eder.
5 CC \ healing tekehu (incredibly effective class, druid are always op in every single game possible)

I know, it's not bad, it works, there are character I love, why do i whine?

Because then I can't fit Maia.
Nor dear old bitchy Pallegina (which should kick ass as a paladin\cantor).
And I keep finding new companions I want to try out and everytime I go crazy about who to dismiss.

Right now I realized that Tekehu can fill the nukelord AND support all by himself without too many issues, if really needed, so maybe I could consider Aloth's spot the jolly one, but leavin him out feels like a war crime.

So, any build suggestion is greatly appreciated, especially because I still have a hard time figuring out how the attack speed system works (or doesn't) in turnbased.

But I'd especially appreciate a heartfelt suggestion based on what you did in your first run.

Yes, I'm breaking every overthinking record possible, I know, I'm stressing out on a game.
because it's too good. makes zero sense.

It's just I didn't feel this excited for progessing in a game since I discovered Dark Souls long long ago. So much childlike wonder is overwhelming as an adult.

Even a "shut up and play the damn thing" would be of great comfort.

Thank you all in advance.

Yesterday I made a this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/comments/1wvr3g6/my_modifications/ about replacing talismans into capes, but realized that some people might want to use this knowledge for basic transmog (changing Armor appearance). So I decided to give short description of how to swap armor model:

1)Download and install "Unity Asset Extractor"

2)Go to installed game folder "\PillarsOfEternity_Data\assetbundles\prefabs\objectbundle

3)Find Armor which you want to change. For me it will be "Jack of Wide Waters". wiki say that it's file name is "padded_armor_jack_of_wide_waters"

4)Open it with "Unity Asset Extractor" and press "Info" Button

5)Look for "Equippable" column (the light green one) and press "Edit Data" button

6)Scroll all the way down until you see "AppearancePiece" column. This is what we need. Now you just need to change those numbers (1,2,3,2) to match the Armor you want to copy. For me I wanted to give it the look of "Exceptional Scale Armor" and the numbers there are 1,5,3,1.

7)Change those values to match piece of equipment you like and Save it.

As you can see, my Durance is wearing Padded Armor, but visually it looks like a Scale Armor (Also Cana's Turban on his head is changed to "Mail Coif").

You can do the same to change Talismans into Capes and other things.

Unfortunately I have no idea how to change Weapons/Shields, since "AppearancePiece" column is doing nothing.

I was playing PoE1 this few weeks and at the same time learned how to modify Equipment Appearance, since I hated how ugly most of the good gear looked.

Mostly I gave a lot of amulets a visual of a Cloaks, as I hated that I had to choose between good look and good stats. Also I changed visuals of some ugly hats into Mail Coifs and a few armors ("Osric's Family Breastplate" look dope, but for some reason devs made it a quest item, which most of players miss because of this).

Should I upload it somewhere (at least amulets)? if anyone interested that is.

Edit: I uploaded it to Nexus. You can check it out. https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity/mods/498

I've been experimenting with the AI editor in Deadfire lately, and it has proved to be incredibly useful. Spell panels become uncluttered, and I don't need to micromanage every action anymore to boot. However, I'm curious about what combinations do you use the most? My favorite are prebuffing with a priest and pressing Second Wind when things go south, but I still don't trust the game to use anything damage related and prefer to press the spells manually.

hello, im looking for a build for ranged cipher in PoE2, not sure what subclass i should pick, what stats to have and if i should multiclass...i would love a genuine level by level build, but all im finding is RTwP staff and that is no good...im currently playing TB in PoE1, using an arbalest and its a lot of fun

multiple options would be amazing, but any help is welcomed...

Thanks to all who give me their time in advance

Hello. I want to ask about how you deal with afflictions on PoTD. It is my first playthrough, so I am a bit confused as how to deal with it.

Afflictions - namely dominate and frightened. I am now level 10, so i am starting to hit my favourite enemies - Delemgans, Fampyrs and Dank Spores. + some ships have sailors who also dominate me. Also dragons are a bit more tough than PoE1, as they can frighten my frontliners.

How do you guys deal with it? Do you use the passives like Fearless and Bulls Will? Or do you get specialised items?

Been going down a rabbit hole for the last hour. I would love to be able to use all the in game companions for their voice/dialogue/interactions but it drives me nuts there is no option to let me chose the class/multiclass I want for them.

It seems like the solution is unity console mod but it hasn't been updated for years and breaks the game maybe?

It appears strait console commands might work but I would have to manually add all passive skills every level for every character?

Also there are mods specifically for customizing companions but at best they give you a few more tweaked multi class/class options. I want to be able to just chose what multiclass I want for them from the ground up.

I am a dummy when it comes to this stuff, I never thought it would be so hard just to let me play the class/multiclass I want on the companions I want. Anyone have any suggestions in 2026? I just want to be able to make Edder a blood wizard/paladin if I want to.

I rolled a Tactician Psion (Fighter/Cipher) and it's starting out strong but I have a question about phantom foes and I'm wondering about the late game.

I'm loving the synergy between the Psion and the Tactician because I can just hit everyone with eyestrike and they become blinded and flanked giving me brilliant buff at the start of combat.

Is phantom foes even worth the point? It has a slightly larger radius and duration but it only causes flanked without the blind and costs twice as much to cast.

As cool as it is to get brilliant buff so easily I find I don't really have anything to do with the points besides spamming penetrating shot or charming all of the enemies and I'm afraid the late game is going to be a drag as I'm looking through the skill trees and besides a few key cipher spells there's not many ability skills that I can use all of my resources on making the brilliant buff kinda meh.

I'm wondering if I would enjoy wizard or rogue more with that buff and I'm wondering if I should just let someone else do the cipher class debuff.

I think rogues are underrated. I played a ranged rogue with a war bow, on PotD and it was great. Finishing Blow is an extremely good ability for killing bosses or tough enemies in general. I was able to hit dragons twice for 150–200 damage per hit. That made these fights feel like a breeze - very easy and smooth. You could probably get even higher numbers with arquebuses or a two-handed melee weapon, but I really liked the war bow because it’s a relatively fast weapon with decent damage. Of course, you need a priest and a chanter to fully unlock your rogue’s boss-killing potential, but I think it’s totally worth it for your party.

Hi boys and girls, so I decided to do Viking like bleak walker with two handed Axe, mace or sword(not decided yet), and i wished to hear your thoughts and if you have created a character of your own. The difficulty is POD.

Thank You.

I've seen a lot of people suggest using scrolls, but player practice seems all over the place for this. My opinion is to use them on either a chanter for support (prayers against x) as they dont have active abilities early in encounters, or eder or a high might MC for damage (useful for on kill effects).

How do you use these items?

I wanted to make playthrough where I would run one guy (most likely Wizard because I love them) and surround them with five supports of different kinds, like Priest buffing crap out of him, Paladin for accuracy... Although most of my ideas were getting to asking myself "won't priest nuke the boss with Shining Beacon quicker?". Any ideas?

Since I can’t respec the companions base stats, how can I get to them to cast extremely quickly? Literally the only thing that is hard about PotD is the excessive number of enemies in some ganks. For example in the Endless Paths on Floor 7, I think, there is a MASSIVE ARMY the ganks you. My party is level twelve, every enemy in the gank is a joke to defeat in reasonable numbers. There are just so fucking many that I can get one ability off from each of my guys AT BEST before they swarm everyone and win through sheer DPS due to their numbers.

So I ask again, how can I act fast enough to handle them? (And yes, the chokepoints are a bit too far away to bait them over before they lock me down).

Experienced crpg nerd here.
Been one since I was a kid in awe for BG2.

Was super into PoE 1, one of my few complains is I got really OP by the early endgame and would have loved a harsher challenge (did it on veteran).

So I said fuck it, let's go all in for the sequel. BAD BAD IDEA.
Even the super early bats ravaged my intestines. Not in a "keep at it and you'll get it" kind of way, more like "enjoy your tpk before you can really act" kind of way.

Remembered I can switch back to more reasonable settings, but apparently it only works on maps you haven't explored yet.
I already went in goricci street (and run immediately after the bitter realization) and am now under the digsite (somehow i got there).

Encounters are unresonable. you either cheese or you cheese. no other options.

Also I tried my hand at multiclassing and maybe fucked myself over sideways in an even deeper hole. don't know if it's going to pay off in the future, right now it feels like I'm half my current level which is still 4
(MC is a cypher\rogue + a barbarian monk merc + a cleric monk + a full fighter)

SHOULD I REALLY RESTART?
I didn't do that much actually, but my inner child is screaming COWARD

Or is there somewhere to farm alittle bit without getting anally gangbanged by level 1 mobs?

Thank you in advance, kind strangers

Hello. As the title suggests, is a guide to trigger quest leading to Three Bells Through arquebus, for folks such as me who have Maia sitting on bench, so it is not very clear how to trigger her to give a quest. Guides online vary and I have been testing it for quite some time, which I will hopefully save for future pirates.

I believe the golden trigger is 1] Maia +1 repu + 2] talking to queen after reading her letter after Hasongo events. game progress, either it is quest count or exp.

I am not 100% certain about necessity of +1 repu, because I did it before part 2] talking to queen. If someone reaches the queen before having +1 and quest triggers, please share. I am still trying to figure 'game progress' you need to make for trigger. For me it triggered after talking to queen, but aparently it can be after first RDC quest as well. So the second trigger is most likely quest count or total exp. Just remove her from bench after every progress with major factions.

Ad 1] Maia repu - repu is gained mostly via Resourcefulness and Pro-Ruatai dialogue options. Lighthearted etc are minor value, but more easily gathered. I have reached +1 through these dialogues: 1.1] Tikawara: +2x Lighthearted talking to Himuihi 1.2] Sayuka: +1x Lighthearted talking to Tebe 1.3] Sayuka: +1x Lighthearted talking to Fleet Master Okaya 1.4] Sayuka: +1x Pro-Ruatai talking to Waturi 1.5] Neketaka, Hole: +1x Resourceful lying to Orron 1.6] Neketaka, Wild Mare: +1x Lighthearted talking to Kahn 1.7] Hasongo: +2x Resourceful talking to soldiers rallying them up

Last words - Hasongo can be stealth mission, so you can get this quest quite early, I got it at lvl 9. Good luck pirates :)

I climbed into the pit in Od Nua with my Level 4 party. I know I can probably find a way around, but I want to give fighting the drake an honest shot. I'm playing using RTwP. I'm fairly new to this style as a whole (though I have played some TB RPGs), and I'd like to get better with it.

My only problem is that I'm having trouble using Aloth for crowd control. I'm trying to trap some of the Xaurips to the side with Binding Web, but it's very difficult for me to time when they're actually going to be in the circle of the spell. If I try cast it over their current position, they obviously they run out of it by the time the cast is finished. Otherwise, I'm basically trying to guess where they will be ~1 second (real-time) in the future.

How can I be more consistent with CC/AOE spells when they take a while to cast? Do I just have to try to guess where the units will be in the future and try to cast that way?

It's probably an old bug, but you can still see a trap by hovering the cursor over it even if your characters don't have enough perception to find it. I guess, it's mostly useless, but I found it funny.

My Watcher already has maxed relationship with all of the "main" party companions. I put the armor on Eder and all of the UI portraits show the aura working as if I had max relationship score, Eder only has max relationship with Xoti. I checked Maia (1 relation with Watcher, 0 with Eder) and it shows +1 AR bonus, so I assume this is kind of a bug / feature of the system?

Hi,

I came back to the game (PoE1) after an extended period and tried to load my most recent save. This period was between the launch of 3.9.5.0.

The continue button just leads to a black screen and eventual crash. The load button of any save just dumps me into the main menu.

I've tried verifying the files. I re-installed the game.
I started a new character but it still creates files in the same save location.

I turned off cloud saves, and deleted old characters, and it still won't load the newest character. I'm not quite sure what my next steps are.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers,