Thoughts/discussion/first impressions of Pillars of Eternity!

I don't think melee rogues are very compatible with spellcasters who like to cast party unfriendly aoes or in a line. I have enough trouble trying to avoid my front liners without a rogue dashing in behind and out. In a more weapon based party, a melee rogue makes alot more sense.

Pretty much depends on your playstyle and how many melees you already have.

I only have the tank and the rogue. Any additional melee would just stand in the way, mostly when fighting indoors and I have to position my group behind a choke point.

That way the enemies then clutter extremely, which then makes it extremely easy to AOE debuff and AOE kill them.

The only spells my casters hardly casts are Fireball (the bouncing one, but it can be great to pull) and everything which is cone shaped, as this would kill my own dudes.

And if you're rogue is in the middle of the pack backstabbing how is he avoiding your AOE attacks? Or does he stay on the fringes, and not bother with backstabbing and trying to flank?

He doesn't bother to flank, which doesn't mean that he doesn't get the bonus.
But let me quote the sneak attack skill:
Uses the rogue's ability to approach unseen, adding additional bonus damage to their attacks when the target is Blinded, Flanked, Hobbled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Prone, Stuck, Stunned or Weakened, as well as when any target is struck within two seconds of combat starting.
So that is a LOT of status effects. Most easily accomplished by placing the HUGE Druid hobble spell infront of your party. In addition throw a flaking spell from a Cipher, which is huge as well. It's extremely easy to get the bonus without actually positioning your rogue in dangerous places.

That said: if you position him in the middle of the enemies, he will die a very fast death anyways. Not but your casts but from the enemies beating on him.

What AE attacks? I don't use mages like, almost ever in any game, certainly not in this one. I have Durant but he is there to keep Mother and Eder in the fight, the rogue rarely needs any heals. If I eschew rangers and bows, I'm certainly not going to use mages, lol. Nothing to me is more satisfying than to run up to a scrub that's in the middle of casting spells and just simply annihilate his sorry ass with what I lovingly refer to as "the blender from hell".

So, K, you don't try to use him to backstab? Just Sneak Attacks? I can understand that, but wasn't really what I was thinking in terms of rogue gameplay. And it certainly doesn't require much (if anything) in terms of special positioning, since everything probably has a spell/power induced mali.

FWIW, that kind of gameplay would synergize with my current playstyle. A shame there is no rogue story PC. Wondering if I should hire one in the tavern, now that I am already up to level 7. Not sure which story NPC I'd switch out. Probably Aloth.

There is no backstab like the one you have in mind.

There is just the sneak attack. And a passive called backstab, which is only working if you come out of stealth or invisibility. Stealth will not work as you will be visible by then and die. Invisibility can only be achieved by another rogue talent which is 2 times per rest.
So that is 2 talents for just 2 attacks per rest which do 100% additional damage, which really isn't that much if you have a couple of other multipliers.

Too bad about backstab not being very useful.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Too bad about backstab not being very useful.

just rename it to boomstab, and rename sneak attack to backstab and you'll ok.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
People who think rogues bring nothing to the team probably aren't playing them well. Life as a rogue is dark, gritty, nasty, and quite satisfying! Bows are for tossers, get in there with your daggers and carve up some meat. Elbows deep ftw!

Daggers? I wield 2 flails

2 Sabres ftw

Originally Posted by Thrasher
And if you're rogue is in the middle of the pack backstabbing how is he avoiding your AOE attacks? Or does he stay on the fringes, and not bother with backstabbing and trying to flank?

Spells attack one of the four defenses.

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
Spells attack one of the four defenses.

But how is that related?

Each elegible character within an AoE is tested by its own roll.
When coupling the attacked defense with the strength of your party members and the weaknesses of the enemy, the chances to hit your own characters might be centered on graze/miss while chances to hit the enemy are centered on hit/critical.

Sending a high reflex character into the fray among low reflex characters and then casting a reflex attacking spell leaves small chances to the character to be damaged while the enemy is on high chances for damages.

Ah, yeah, I see what you mean.
And while this of course is absolutely correct, I don’t think it is very practical to focus on that regularly.
While you have a lot of choices, you don’t have that many choices.
The Defense value (like Deflection or Reflex) combined with the DR Value (like Fire DR) are already limiting the options you have for each encounter.
E.g. it doesn’t make any sense to use cold spells on most of the undead.
So throwing in your character as additional limiting factor would make the whole thing unnecessarily complicated / limit the options of spells you can use in the situation very small. It is also extremely hard to focus on one special kind of defence. And having 20 or 30 more of one type of defence than the opponent would not do the trick here.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
Ah, yeah, I see what you mean.
And while this of course is absolutely correct, I don’t think it is very practical to focus on that regularly.
While you have a lot of choices, you don’t have that many choices.
The Defense value (like Deflection or Reflex) combined with the DR Value (like Fire DR) are already limiting the options you have for each encounter.
E.g. it doesn’t make any sense to use cold spells on most of the undead.
So throwing in your character as additional limiting factor would make the whole thing unnecessarily complicated / limit the options of spells you can use in the situation very small. It is also extremely hard to focus on one special kind of defence. And having 20 or 30 more of one type of defence than the opponent would not do the trick here.

I'm guessing this is important for PotD runs. In hard I don't care about any of this and most fights (except the Lord Raedric fortress and the 'master below') have been easy to ok in difficulty.

Soooo if you collect the all the parts of the blade of the endless path only after finishing Defiance Bay you are fucked?

Originally Posted by zahratustra
Soooo if you collect the all the parts of the blade of the endless path only after finishing Defiance Bay you are fucked?

I am curious about that too - defiance bay does re-open (I've been back later myself) - so I guess as long as you haven't alienated the smith guy there it maybe OK? I have just get the last piece myself and thought I'd head there to check before finishing the main quest…will see soon enough I guess.

So what's the deal with all the mind controlling enemies as you go? Talk about tedious. If I wait until I have the right protection spell the bay will be closed?

Defiance Bay re-opens as soon as you reach Twin Elms for the first time.