Well, I wouldn't put DnD games as an example of great design exactly, they do have this tendency of randomly killing low level characters due to HP count ;-) Seriously, reloading often seems to be a bit of a staple of isometric tactical RPGs and albeit I do find the decision to prevent player from escaping a map while engaged a bit weird, it's never really been an issue for me aside from the bear fight. Most of the game is relatively easy on normal - if you have issues with dying, do lower the difficulty, it's not like the game'll bite you for doing so.

Oh, and you didn't actually -need- to kite to beat the Ogre in Dragon Age: Origins. I bloody hate kiting. If there's something which breaks my immersion it's an enemy who acts like he expects Benny Hill theme to start playing any moment (that is not to say Dragon Age was particularily well designed *shrug*)

Yeah, DnD really needed to have a flat amount of health for all level 1 characters tacked on. I mean, would that Level 1 Wizard who can cast one Magic Missile all day be wicked OP if he had 16 HP instead of... what, three and a half HP? And your front line will die if they take two high damage rolls or one high crit. Good luck strategizing your way out of that with your one spell cast for the day... Oh Icewind Dale, why are you so mean?

Dragon Age wizards were slightly OP tactically. If you channeled a death ball just in front of your front line, made your dudes stop running forward, and plinked away with bows if you had them, then you were halfway through winning Normal battles. I found it pretty hard to get things done without it by the time I got some good spells running.

I usually try not to reset aggro, but I agree that they should patch that out and patch running mechanics in. And yeah, it's dumb when a country road in the middle of nowhere is artificially cramped by The Edge Of The World. They should do better. At least they did a lot right otherwise.

I don't think that ever happened to me.

Do you have a party already? If not, get one first - and pick your battles wisely until you do. This is not a linear dungeon crawl journey like the Icewind Dale games where you're supposed to clear out a map completely and then move on to the next. You'll return to many of the maps anyway later on (for various quests and tasks, especially if you do the bounty hunter missions). So you can save tough fights for then.

Also, what I found helps greatly in this game is to designate a 'tank' character (Edér works well) whom you equip with the strongest armor and shield and give only defensive abilities and talents on level-up. He won't do much damage, but won't take much either. He can run into battle first while the rest stay back, suffer (and shrug off) the brunt of the enemies' debilitating spells/effects and try to engage as many of their melee warriors as possible, so that the rest of your party can safely move in and do their thing.

As for Wizards, they're actually great at surviving the early game in v2.0 - if they picked the right first-level spells. Which unfortunately, the scripted Wizard companion did not... :( The spells in question are:

- Slicken - if your Wizards has a high enough Intellect, this can be used to render most or all of the enemies in the battle defenseless without affecting your own party. Can make an otherwise impossible battle quite manageable.

- Spirit Shield + Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff combo - turns the Wizard into a better melee fighter than an actual Fighter, for a short time. Great for beating otherwise dreaded enemies like shades.

- Chill Fog - excellent stationary damage-dealing spell. Lure a large group of enemies into a chokepoint, and use your tank and other front-line warriors to keep them engaged there. Then cast chill fog on them (making sure that only the bonus radius - which is exempt from friendly fire - touches your own chars). Watch the enemies take continuous damage until they die or are at least softened up enough to make them easy to finish off.

If you didn't invite the scripted companion wizard into your party yet, I recommend that you go to the settings and deactivate "auto-level companions when they join". This way, once he joins you can manually choose his level-up spells from level 1 to your current level. You can skip level 2 spells entirely for now, they're not as good as the aforementioned level 1 spells (of which you should get as many as possible early on).

Of course you'll and up finding all of those spells over the course of the game from enemy's grimoires, but it could take a while - use level-up spells to ensure you get the important ones early on.

Removing that restriction would make sense, yeah. But tbh I never missed it once I had a full party and got the hang of the game.

Thanks, Archy, great tips. I had come to the same conclusion about the non-offensive tank, but definitely had little idea of which spells were best. I was musing about a elf tank and that fire ray spell.

Yeah, presumably if I make a full 6 person party (I had tended more towards 4 or 5 or, at first, solo) and try to guess better about what order to do things, I'll run into less death traps.

I can't really explain why, but something about this game, maybe the non-linear aspect, combined with the inability to scout and flee in some cases, it far more death for me than typical. I realize that I probably come across in this thread like I have little skill with rpg strategy games, but that is why this game feels different for me; normally I don't run into issues like I do with Pillars, and I've played the majority of all of the rpgs out there.

I can pretty easily (not claiming that of the following is special) solo Baldur's gate 1 and 2, basically with zero deaths the whole time (preferably with a fighter/mage/thief, not just any class), and the following with very rare or very few deaths: tales of Maj'eyal I do on Nighmare, Icewind Dale 1 or 2 solo, Xulima on hard after just a few hours getting used to it on normal. The might and magic games or gold box games didn't leave me with any sort of impression like with Pillars, nor did Neverwinter Nights 1 or 2, both of course easily soloed. Or SWKOTOR 1 or 2, Dragon Age 1 or 3, etc. etc. etc.

Maybe this game is subtly more inspired by MMOs like DDO online or something, where you have a dedicated tank plus DPS, as opposed to most single-player rpg's where you can often solo or at least be a point-man. Maybe the difficulty with real defense is an issue. In most of the old DnD inspired crpgs, you could get your defense to the point where you could be mostly invulnerable with some preparation and strategy. In Pillars, sure you can be tank-y, but sort of like DDO online and other MMO's, you mostly take damage no matter what you do for defense, just less of it.

4 or 5 is fine. And it's not like your party is fixed - you can drop and re-add party members at any inn (even at a different inn than where you dropped them). So feel free to experiment with different party configurations during the game; no need to restart from the beginning for that.

There's definitely a different feeling to PoE combat compared to DnD combat, yeah.

Your tank will be able to get his defenses high enough that he'll usually take zero damage from enemies that are significantly lower level than him (such as wilderness animal encounters by mid game).
In the level-appropriate encounters, however, he'll always take a little damage, as you said.

Not to mention you can't restore your Health other than by resting (or tiny amounts using certain talents but those are not worth it). So the adventuring day is usually limited by your tank's health pool, which does give the game a different "rhythm" than, say, Baldur's Gate 2.

I just wanted to say that I'm glad to see this post. I am also feeling not-so-engaged with this game, and even stopped playing it after a couple of days because I just felt I wasn't understanding the difficulty of certain encounters. I got to the point of challenging the Watcher in the keep. Got through the spooks and spiders without too much difficulty, but was anhilated by the watcher repeatedly. I suppose level 2 is too soon to attempt this battle, even with 3 companions. I don't really understand why the battles leading up to that fight were so relatively easy. It seems that most games of this type usually will sort of warn you that you are in the wrong place by putting really dangerous enemies in places that you shouldn't be in yet. The Gothic games, for instance, really did this well. Maybe it's just a matter of getting used to the design...

I am admittedly not as hard-core as most of you, but have played through BG 1&2 multiple times, Icewind Dale 1&2, all 3 Gothics including NotR (my favorites), Dragon Age, etc., and was really looking forward to this game. I'll try again, go back and get some more experience somewhere before attempting the watcher battle again.

The difference with that battle previous the other is the Watcher casting spells, before him you found creatures with super natural abilities but not a caster with area effect. Basically, for this battle you must discover at fly how to handle with a lot of fire and casters.

And remember that you can hire NPC in any inn to increase the numbers.

Number is not a case in this combat,it is doable even solo. Timing, learn how to avoid spells. In team it is easy to take him off 4-5 characters but level 2 is probably well... TOOO low. I have no idea how did You manage to reach Maerwald on level 2 as my team is mostly lvl 4-5 when i reach him.

I camped a LOT ;)
Like I said, I have no idea what level I'm supposed to be in any given area. And I just found out on these boards that experience is not given for killing things. I have looked through the manual at least 4 times and can not see where this is stated. Would have been nice to know, because I've been wandering around trying to kill stuff to raise my level. Oh well, now I know. Another thing that may be bothering me, with my older eyes, is the fact that the text is very tiny. I think I need my reading glasses to get the most out of the information I'm given.

In options there is a way to increase text size.
And best way to get exp is making quest. Go around talk to ppl (others than "Read soul") and make some quests. Even making some of them will give You ate least 2 more levels. And remember to posiiton your allies carefully and try using different tactics in different encounters - it helps, and "rambo" tactics do not work (never)..

Edit: Options -> Graphic -> Font Scaling

Thank you for the advice about the font. That should help.

I have started over with an emphasis on quest completion. I'm having fun again. Sometimes it just takes a better understanding of objective.

I was happy to help. Even more happy if my help let You enjoy this fantastic game. Have a nice time with it - it is totally worth it ;-)

I think I will enjoy it now. BTW, I have been playing as a rogue (my favorite class). This may make the game somewhat easier early on. They scout well and disable traps, unlock doors, etc.

First RPG I ever played was The Bard's Tale: Tales of the Unknown (unrelated entirely to the Bard's Tale from 2004). Just down the street from the Adventurer's Guild (where every session starts and ends, as the game was only saved there) is a Stone Samurai statue. You have to kill that thing to access the first (starter) dungeon. He is easily capable of wiping your entire party at level 1, and even at level 4 or 5 can kill a character. DOS version is a bit easier without the cheat, since you get many more hitpoints, but it is still very rough.

You also have to gain a few levels of spells to even have a healing spell, and healing in the temple, while readily available, will bankrupt a party quickly. Even a veteran party.

I've also been 1 shotted by critters in Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, kept stun-locked by priests in Dragon Wars, and been slaughtered by specters in Might and Magic 2. It's a very common feature of classic cRPGs to have weak party members in the early game. In fact, I'd say having easier encounters early on is a relatively modern take on the genre.