Hi Everyone,

i had hoped the manual would have explained this, but i guess i am still spoiled by the old Baldur's Gate manual. ;)

I have a couple of questions about the mechanics, i have not looked at many threads here to avoid spoilers, so sorry if this is explained somewhere. And please answer as spoiler free as possible :)

I am not very far in the game, still in the first area and level three. Now i have a couple of questions about character building.

- What is the level i am expected to have near the end of the game? Or is there a hard level cap?
- What is the cap on skills? For combat skills i thing it is 10 (the summoning skill mentions skill level 10), for civil skills i assume its still 5, since i get less points, and merchants all hat blacksmithing/loremaster 5+
- Skill increases seem now to be a general one point per level, but i am only level three, does it stay that way?
- How many skill and attribute points do you get?
- Crafting and Blacksmithing seem to be gone, so no skill caps on crafting?
- Will there be a respec? Considering the Lone Wolf description, i assume Lone Wolf cannot be "exploited" anymore on respeccing?

One last question. I loved the teleporter pyramids in OS1, are they still in?

Here is a pretty good character build guide that explains which skills are suited well for which class (obviously, for melee based characters you wouldn't want skills that scale with INT - though, like the teleport skill in Aerothurge, it's worth a melee based character, especially an Archer to drop enemies down-ground for the height attack bonus, to have. But there are certain classes that are great for melee, besides the obvious ones):

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1138706775


I believe there is a level cap of 20.

And I'm *pretty sure* combat caps are 10 and civils are 5.

I'm only level 5, but it seems the 1 point to raise a skill would stay that way.

How many points you get until the level 20 cap is a good question - I would need to look up a guide to find that out.

Crafting and Blacksmithing - (this is only a guess) - I would think most things can be crafted, but there are probably certain things that depend on your character level. Same with the increase in power by using Blacksmithing on weapons/armor - but I am only guessing. The new Rune system thing might mean I'm wrong.

There is a respec after you escape the prison island. Hopefully you have been doing all the NPC's sidequests (in the correct order - doing one's before another's can break theirs) as I *think* (I'm not there yet) that you will be able to choose your final party at that point. Though - guessing again - it seems certain NPC's may not be able to be in the same party from things I've noticed so far in their quests ...

^that is also where you should create a hard save (before respec and deciding) so you can start a later play from that point. Unless you did things in Fort Joy that prevent you from doing other things later in the game, of course.

There is a thread on here with all the changes for each patch, one of which indirectly revealed some spoilers, and iirc I noticed that yes, there are teleporter pyramids.



This might be too late for you as you are level 3, but because of the respec, a really good strategy in Fort Joy is to use all of the NPC's and do their questlines (without spoiling, once using them, you should quickly see the order in which to do their quests ...). You can pick your main party of 4, then once in a while drop one and grab another, then back, etc (they keep all their inventory and equipped items - you won't lose anything).

The 2nd part, again due to the respec, is put all civil points you can in thieving for each character because each character can only pickpocket ONCE. But if they all have thieving, thats 4 times per merchant. Pick the "all skilled up" talent asap for all so you have another point for thieving, and don't even start until you have your main at 3 and hopefully the rest at 2, and you have a high enough level when the merchants sell the next tier of skill books. DON'T USE THEM! If it's like the 1st game, a respec will clear your learned skills. Plus you can get some great weapons, armor, and rings.

The trick is to not get too much xp on the boat, then don't do anything on the island until you have recruited (and released 2) your NPC's so they are still at level 1 and you can put their points where you want.

At the respec point you can fix all those civil points with the party you choose, and now you should be loaded to the gills with skill books (the merchants resupply the ones you stole after a bit, so you can get multiples for members you want to have the same *certain* skills ...) to make a strong party.


^yeah, I know that is pretty meta gaming and you don't need to do it ... personally, I didn't realize it until a ways in so I only had 2 characters with thievery ...