You commands one or more of your party members by issue orders, ranging from continuous activities, like making standard attacks, to the activation of limited-use tactical abilities, such as spells. Positioning the party and coordinating attacks and abilities is one of the major keys to success. When you ask them to attack, your party will run to engage the target. Once engaged, you cannot exit combat without fulfilling one of the requirements listed under The Rules of Engagement on the next page.
Abilities and Spells
Your character’s abilities and spells will appear above his image. Click an ability once to activate it. Spells that always affect or are centered on the user do not need to be targeted. For targeted abilities and spells, first click the ability or spell, and then click the target you want to use the ability on (or against) to activate it. If the spell is an area attack, click the area you wish to cast the spell upon. Attack and Defense All attacks in Pillars of Eternity rely on using Accuracy to overcome one or more of the target’s four defenses. The Accuracy of an attack is determined by the character’s class, level, equipment, and special bonuses. Deflection is used to resist most weapons and the natural attacks of monsters. It is defined primarily by the character’s class and level.
Fortitude helps characters defend against attacks that can physically overpower them, such as knockdowns, poison, or disease (Might and Constitution). Reflexes resist area attacks like fireballs or a dragon’s breath (Dexterity and Perception). Mental attacks almost always target the character’s Will (Intellect and Resolve). As with Accuracy, characters’ defenses all increase as they gain levels.
Damage Detail:
When an attack is made, the target’s appropriate defense score is subtracted from the attacker’s Accuracy. That difference is then added to a random number between 1 and 100 to determine the results.
- <15 = Miss – No effect on the target.
- 6-50 = Graze – Damage and durations are halved.
- 51-95 = Hit – Standard damage and durations.
- >95 = Crit – Damage and durations are increased by 50{ad0b53be2d5c5d18a99e20ff09d5b2ab365deb4c843e9bf9a16eb8b27c6b832d}
Some special abilities (such as rogue’s Dirty Fighting) may change one attack result into another, for example a Hit becoming a Crit.
Key Factors
- Certain Spells and abilities can speed up attacks/actions.
- Heavier armor hamper recovery time between actions, thus decrease attacks/action speed.
- Weapons have different attack speeds (and reload speeds).
- Generally, a two-handed weapon takes more time to use than a fast one-handed variety, or using magical implement.
- A character wielding two weapons is making more frequent attacks than when wielding one weapon.
Damage:
Damage is typically associated with one of seven damage types: Slash, Crush, Pierce, Burn, Freeze, Shock, or Corrode. Whenever damage is applied, the target will subtract his or her Damage Threshold, though even with very high Damage Threshold, the target will always take a small amount of damage. Many armor types, both worn by the player’s characters, and found on enemies, will have special resistances or vulnerabilities to specific damage types. Tooltips and the Combat Log can help highlight these differences. An eighth damage type, Raw, always ignores armor. It is typically only inflicted by poison, bleeding wounds, or similar effects.
Scouting Mode:
You can enter in scouting mode by pressing the “ALT” key or you can click on scouting button on the main action bar. This will allow your characters to carefully explore their environments for hidden objects while staying undetected by enemies. Detection radius is designated by a circle under each individual character that slowly fills with color. When it is full, your character will be detected and may be attacked if the enemy moves close enough.
It should be 15.