Endurance woes

Health is a redundant and under designed feature. Camping supplies feature should be enough, given how you need to rest for spells.

I get the idea of the current system, but the whole thing is just too confusing and doesn't really have an impact beyond normal systems, just like the whole "no combat XP" thing, since most fights are unavoidable anyway.

I guess it's an attempt at spicing up the genre a bit, but for me they're targeting areas that simply aren't problematic.

Well, as couple of people have said already, too much effort went into "being different". Effort which could have been directed elsewhere…

I think the Health/Endurance thing is cool, and I like how the game limits camping supplies so you can't just heal after every fight. On harder difficulties, I imagine managing your Health and Endurance is a game in itself, and it's even a bit tricky on Normal difficulty if you aren't careful and using proper tactics in battle.

I was playing like a total newb at first, getting creamed and having to rest after every tough battle. Once I started devising a strategy and implementing it properly, I was able to string together fights without resting, because my characters were much better taken care of.

I would love to restart the game and play on both Path of the Damned as well as Trials of Iron mode. That should make for some really amazing gameplay, I think.

Originally Posted by Elel
Zloth, I'm underleveled for that dungeon for sure, you're right. I've yet to travel to the city and have only met three of companions. But I have crowd-control issues with various other battles, too, so I could use crowd tactics info.

And there's the issue. Four isn't enough. Five might be, though, try it and see. Durance the cleric is in Magran's Fork and Kana is near the entrance of the Caed Nua zone. If you're still getting beat on, try hiring a paladin or barbarian at the inn.

This isn't an MMO so your "tank" <spit> can't just take all the damage on himself. He can occupy up to three enemies (four if you take the 'hold the line' ability) but you have to get him in a position where he can actually do that. If the fighter gets knocked down or otherwise incapacitated, the baddies will run right by him to get to the spell casters.

Ciphers are pretty deadly with their mind blades attack for 15 focus. I gave my NPC cipher a hunting bow and a pair of daggers as weapons so she could crank out damage ASAP instead of getting it in big hunks with the crossbow but I don't think that change was critical.

That super-low perception worries me. I'm pretty sure you need that in order to hit with a ranged weapon and you need the ranged weapon in order to build up focus without getting diced. Well, Zahratustra already spoke about that so I'll leave it be.

Aloth has a spell that adds fire damage to all hits, doesn't he? Cast that out there then cast the mind blades and you're hitting everyone for decent damage.

Strategy is always a big thing, though. You've got to try and find bottle necks to plug up with your fighter then blast away with spells. Aloth will only have a few at first so he's mostly going to be a ranged attack user. Kana will be, too, until he can chant up some skeletons. Durance can do his every-battle heal then either do ranged attacks or whack things with his burning stick. His bless power is a nice one but you won't get to use it much.

P.S. I like the health/endurance/camping thing, too. Or at least I did in the first act. I think I've only had to use camping gear once since Act 2 started.

I'm really thankful for all the advice here! I'm going to replay the game with different stats, upping perception to 10 and nerfing dexterity as suggested.

Can I ask someone who has spare time now to tell me which spells are best to pick for first levels? For all three spell classes. Because I realize I messed up after reading posts above. For example, I never picked slicken for wizard and my choices for cipher were questionable.

And I have some tactical questions after thinking on what I found uncomfortable about this game:

1) In BG and NWN games my usual strategy was to use a sneaking character to scout for traps and enemies and then cast mass invisibility to put my party around the enemy group in a way that would benefit fighting. Can I do it in PoE? How far do I need to raise sneaking for that? So far enemies see sneakers very soon, even from distance, and there's no way to put the party in positions I want around them.

2) In those games I used to cast highly damaging or crowd controlling spells beforehand, which I don't think is cheesy, after all, sneaking and invisibility were present for a reason. So my party typically had a preemptive prep attack on an unsuspecting enemy. And sometimes I would cast invis again and keep a mage hidden to cast some handy control spell whenever the situation gets sour. In PoE I don't find such strategy possible. Even if I set Aloth to cast a spell before the fight breaks out, he has to sneak up too close for casting and gets detected, which means he gets attacked first… Not good.

Was PoE made with a more "pure" approach intentionally, so that players had to engage in all fights heads-on? Or am I missing something? I swear a possibility to "entrap" enemies by working in the shadows was my favorite feature of those games.

3) I don't remember spells missing in those games, although they could be interrupted. As for PoE, I just fired it up to see how much damage Aloth does with necrotic lance among different enemies, and what do I get? First cast: he gets interrupted before he can cast. Second cast: spell misses. Third: misses. Fourth: misses. The enemy being a mere xaurip skirmisher in all 4 cases. How do I work around this? Missing is the most frustrating.

Cypher 1st lev. - Eye Strike; Soul Shock; Whisper of Treason.
2nd lev. - Mental Binding; Mind Blades; Psychovampiric Shield; Recall Agony.
3rd lev. - Puppet Master; Secret Horrors.
Aloth 1st lev. - Chill Fog; Kalakoth's Sunless Gasp; Slicken; Spirit Shield.
2nd lev. - Bulwark against Elements; Fetid Caress; Necrotic Lance; Concelhaut Corrosive Siphon.
3rd lev. - Fireball; Kalakoth's Minor Blights; Minoletta's Bounding Missiles; Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage.
There are 4 spell classes: cypher, wizard, priest and druid but I have to tell you that I don't remember being able to pick spells for priest (or druid for that matter) but I might be wrong…
1- Most of my party have 4 in sneaking and it seems to work well enough. Remember also that splitting your party works in PoE only in very few cases. If you split your party when facing multiple or teleporting enemies your squishies will get killed in no time at all… In those cases you might want to follow chokepoint/traps/tanks up front scenario described by me and Zloth.
2- It doesn't work like that in PoE I'm afraid. Majority of spells can only be used in combat so you can hit an unsuspecting enemy with a salvo of ranged weapons but not with a salvo of spells… But, if you send Edar (for example) forward to draw the enemies towards you, your priest can cast a couple of buffs on the party and wizard and druid can cast some debuffs and AoEs before mob hits you.
3- that's strange… have you checked if your party didn't have any debuffs lowering their accuracy on them? One or two spells can be interrupted or miss but four? Something similar happened to me when fighting Adra Dragon at the end of the Endless Path but the dragon was surrounded by Aura of Fear (-10 accuracy)… So look for debuffs and remember that some of the priest's buffs (and some potions) can rise your party's accuracy.