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Pillars of Eternity - Helpful Tips

By Arymancer

A quick rundown of helpful tips and tricks you might not have known about! Lots of useful information for new players. You're welcome to share your own tips in comments below, and I'll add them to the list!

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Created by

Arymancer
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Category: Characters, Classes, Gameplay Basics, Secrets, Story or Lore, Walkthroughs

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

23 Apr, 2015 @ 6:03pm

6 Jan @ 11:12am

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Guide Index

Overview

Notable features and changes added since the release

General

Interface

Party management

Combat

Comments

Notable features and changes added since the release

Here is an overview of the notable features added to the game with all the following updates. You can also find the overview of all updates by clicking here[pillarsofeternity.fandom.com].

Companion AI - You may now set your companions to use AI. For those of you that do not want to micromanage your party, you may now choose to have the AI perform basic commands for you. You can activate and deactivate the AI control at any time, so you can still have ultimate party control when you need it. Each class has specialized AI packages and we will be adding more in the future.
Improved Creature AI - Creatures and NPCs will now act more intelligently and make better use of their abilities and spells.
Character Retraining - You may now retrain your character and modify their stats for a small fee.
Individual Stealth - You may now place individual party members into scouting mode. If some of your party enters combat you will no longer have your entire party leave stealth.
Range Indicators - There are now range indicators to let you know the casting range of spells and abilities. Now you will know if your wizard is going to move before he casts that Fireball.
Accuracy Indicators - You are now shown the chance to hit on all attacks, abilities, and spells by mousing-over a potential target.
Changed lockpicking so that it now uses three lockpicks if the lock is above your level, one lockpick if the lock is equal to your level, and no lockpicks if the lock is below your level.
We now have immunities in the game. Some creatures have been updated to make use of them. I'm looking at you blights and dragons... (immunities listed in the bestiary, they're hidden in Expert mode)
New content for the Stronghold that has you, as lord or lady of Caed Nua, decide the fate of your vassals and send your companions on new and exciting adventures.
There is also a new quest line that allows you to defend your claim to Caed Nua.
Knockout Injuries have been added as an option for those that want it. Injuries are added to characters that are knocked out in battle and are only removed by resting.
Story Time mode has been added. This difficulty setting is for people that want to experience the Pillars of Eternity story without having to build a party of adventurers focused on combat.
Athletics has been revamped so that it allows characters to cast Second Wind. A powerful healing ability. A higher Athletics skill increases the size of the heal.
Survival now grants rest bonuses. A higher Survival skill will unlock more rest bonuses or increase the strength of existing bonuses.
The Action Bar has been reorganized so that it is easier for players to see their Per Encounter, Per Rest, and Watcher abilities.
Act 3 and second half of Od Nua has been revised to remove the number of "trash" encounters and increase their difficulty.
A high level scaling option has been included for anyone that enters Act 3 at a high level.
Added a melee attack for pigs, beware.
Added an ingredients filter to store UI.
Dominated friendlies now use a yellow selection circle.
Ponamu Bird-Scorned, a merchant from the Deadfire, has washed ashore in Anslög's Compass.
Added nine new Deadfire-themed items sold by Ponamu Bird-Scorned. These include four new soulbound items.
Added ten new player portraits from backers of Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire.

General

While creating a character, it is best to remember that there are no good or bad characters, and different people appreciate different aspects of the game. You don't thave to be white knight to get the most out of the game
Be creative! Experiment with builds and make character you want to play, not the character that guides say you should
Explore! Don't rush through main quest if you're playing for the first time, you'll miss out on lots of quests, rewards and experience
If you're having trouble with completing certain side quest, don't hesitate to leave it and return to it later when your party grows stronger
Remember to save your progress constantly. Make separate saves before important events
With patch 1.05, loading a Trial of iron game will now force a save to happen to prevent save scumming
Pick up everything. You have more than enough space in your stash to keep all the loot you find. You don't have to worry about becoming over encumbered
Don't forget to collect ingredients. Crafting and Enchanting will make your life easier
Always sneak. That way you can spot enemies before they spot you, giving you time to prepare. Also, sneaking enables you to find hidden objects and traps
Use Fast Mode while sneaking to move at normal speed while still detecting traps & hidden objects
You can check the option to automatically change to Slow Mode when combat starts, if you're having issues with micromanaging your party effectively
You can enable developer commentary in options menu, to hear developer notes on certain zones and development process of the game. Keep it off on your first playthrough for better immersion :)

Interface

You can split a stack by double clicking on it
You can select multiple items in your inventory screen by holding down CTRL or SHIFT while left clicking them
Holding SHIFT while right clicking an item will send it to your Stash
Items like lockpicks, prybars, hammer & chisel and grappling hooks don't have to be in your inventory in order to use them. You can keep them in your stash
You can keybind abilities by hovering your mouse over them, and pressing the desired key or extra mouse button
With patch 1.05, you can now assign a hotkey for switching weapon sets
Pressing CTRL + [Number] while having a character (or group of characters) selected, will bind that character/group to that number
You can queue your abilities by holding down SHIFT, then clicking them in order you want them executed. Keep in mind that your character will move out of position if you queued abilities with different range
Same way, you can issue movement commands while holding down SHIFT, creating waypoints. There is no visual feedback on movement paths, though
With patch 1.05, you can change the portrait and sound set of any custom character (companions are not customizable) from the character screen, by clicking the gear icon
With patch 1.05, you can rename save games, making it easier to navigate through heaps of save files

Party management

If you're using custom formation, you can rearrange portraits in the lower left corner as you like. The leftmost character will be the one you'll hear responding to your movement commands
Apart from doing Solo achievement, there is no reason not to have a full party. Apart from premade companions, you can recruit as many adventurers as needed, and swap them depending on the situation. You won't get monk, barbarian and rogue premade companions during the course of the game
You can hire up to 8 adventurers, and they will level up even though if they aren't currently in your party
With patch 1.05, there is a new option in the Difficulty settings to reset newly recruited companions to level 1 without losing the experience, when they get added to the party for the first time. That means you can level them up to your liking, picking skills & talents as you see fit
Heavier armor doesn't slow down your attack and cast speed, but the recovery time between them. If your character doesn't need to spam abilities, you can boost his defenses by equipping him with heavier armor. For example, support oriented Priest can wear heavy armor, and still buff whole party with useful AoE spells, while still being able to soak some hits
It is recommended to put 3 points in Athletics on all your characters, to minimize combat fatigue (-90% combat fatigue)
With patch 1.05, your pet can't become fatigued
Always keep your eye on buffs and debuffs on the side of your character portraits. Managing debuffs is very important in higher difficulties
Skills don't effect stats, and vice versa. Stats are combat oriented, while skills aren't
It's a good idea to specialize certain character to some skill. You don't need all characters having average points in Mechanics or Stealth
Investing points in Mechanics is very useful throughout the game, have one character focused on that
Train your tanks to engage more enemies. For example, Fighters have Defender abilities which allows them to engage two additional targets. Or Hold The Line talent trains any character to engage one additional enemy.
You can invest points in Survival for your tanks. There are some really useful potions from which they can benefit greatly
Have in mind that item bonuses don't stack. For example if you have both cloak with +2 Might, and ring with +1 Might, you'll get +2 Might from cloak. Bonus from the ring will be suppressed
Check your character screen Active Effects section for suppressed bonuses. Try optimizing your party by properly distributing gear and minimizing suppressed bonuses
Don't neglect Accuracy. If you're having issues with your attacks missing, try equipping your characters with weapons that give additional Accuracy (Club, Dagger, Rapier, Spear)
Make use of weapon slots. It's good idea to equip your characters with weapons of different damage types, so you can easily switch between them depending on enemy defenses

Combat

You can turn your group to face certain direction by pressing and holding the right mouse button
Customize Auto-Pause category in settings to your liking. It's recommended to turn on auto-pause for "Enemy Spotted" and "Hidden Object Found"
Positioning is very important during combat, so make sure your tanks engage as many enemies as possible, and your squishy characters are covered
Don't forget to use Bestiary. You can find it under your Journal. As you kill monsters, more information will become available in your bestiary, giving useful hints about their strengths and weaknesses
When dealing with larger groups of enemies, make use of the environment - try pulling them to choke points.
When fighting teleporting enemies like Shadows or Phantoms, make sure to cover and buff your squishiest characters. Keeping your squishy characters surrounded in tight formations leaves no available spots for enemies to teleport to them
Make use of Flanked status effect by surrounding enemies. Flanked enemies get -10 Deflection
Dealing damage is just as important as mitigating damage. Priests, for example, have nice set of useful support spells
AoE (Area of Effect) spells can affect both your party and enemies. Red circle will affect both allies and enemies, while yellow circle will affect only enemies. Some AoE spells affect only your party
You can only set one trap at a time per character, resulting in max 6 traps. Traps can be also picked up (thanks to Cluascorp & biedrzynski for the tips)
Keep in mind that one character can only have one summon active at a time. For example, that means that if your Chanter already summoned a Phantom, using a figurine will destroy the Phantom
Following the previous tip, make sure you distribute your figurines to all of your characters, so you can strategically summon all of them if the fight requires it
Don't hesitate to use all your "Per Encounter" abilities during the encounter, no point in saving them
Later on, your "Per Rest" spells become "Per Encounter". 1st level spells become "Per Encounter" at level 9, and 2nd level spells become "Per Encounter" at level 11

108 Comments

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Giorgio76 1 Feb, 2024 @ 10:56am

Great tips, so glad I started playing this game for the first time after the newest update, and I am ready to spend money on a "POE II with BG3 level budget" as soon as the Crowdfunding or Kickstarter goes live (crossing fingers). The learning curve on this game is rough, but I did my homework (watched tutorials and read many guides) and it is not as hard at it seems once you have the basics down. Having a blast! :)

Latex Santa 1 Feb, 2024 @ 10:16am

@Edenflaw As someone who's had the game in his library since 2015 but is only about to install it now, thanks for the tips. Much appreciated.

Quizlibet 14 Nov, 2023 @ 7:09am

Note on the last bullet: I'm pretty sure that not all spells become Per Rest at levels 9 and 11; rather you get to pick one spell from that level to become per rest, while the rest stay per encounter.