Welp, it's a real time with pause game, but I actually have to turn-by-turn micromanage Octavia. I'd love to use her in my group, but she can only do one thing, and that is use Acid Splash for 1d3 damage. If I have her attack with her bow, even if I have her and only her selected, she'll twang once and then go back to spamming Acid Splash.

How difficult would it be to put in a basic character AI management function. You know, like every game like this has had from Dragon Age to Pillars of Eternity. Sigh.

I have been wiped out numerous times because characters will often just refuse to carry out any command, whether auto or direct command from me. I've clicked on a character and given them the command to attack normally. They just stand there and refuse to do anything.

Another thing that gets me is that if it rains your party suddenly starts to walk in slow motion! How bloody ridiculous.

Yeah RTwP D&D games do tend to require micromanagement I'm afraid. As for the Acid Splash thing, the use of cantrips by your character AI can be toggled on/off on each cantrip (I think it's by right/clicking the quickbar icon, check Acid Splash's tooltip, it should explain everything).

Like cafeine_ has said, you can turn things on/off for the AI. I think you should drag your weapon in the quickbar and right click on it, that should make the character always use it.

I really enjoy Dragon Age: Orgins AI system and something simular to that would have been amazing for this game.

While this game does a lot things right from story telling, to mood, pacing, music, and visuals. The AI system is not done well.

- Those with healing magic, will not heal anyone unless you manually select them.

- Selecting a spell burining hands then clicking on an enemey will cast it from where the character is rather than moving to the selected enemy and casting it.

- Lack of smart weapon choice: My ranged characters have a melee weapon for a reason. They should switch to them.

- Spellcasting 101: If possible the casters should take the five foot step back to prevent the attack of opprotunity when casting a spell.

Got to agree with this. DAO AI was/is amazing, especially compared to this abomination.

I'll give you your other points, but: Burning Hands is a cone spell, when you select it you'll see a (sometimes hard to see, but it's there) cone showing the area the spell will cover when cast. You'll have to maneuver your caster around to find the right place and angle to cast cone spells without frying your teammates. Hint: when a character's selection circle turns white, it means they're in the area of effect. They could step backward, but then they'd receive an attack of opportunity for breaking contact so it's the same.

TL;DR: this 3.5D&D with a different coat of paint, so you'll have to approach the game with that mindset if you want to really enjoy it. Of course it may or may not be your thing, ymmv. For the record I hated DA:O's AI system, different tastes and all that.

Oh, I hadn't thought to look at any settings on any abilities themselves. Gonna try that cantrip thing!

I don't mind the occasional bit of micromanaging, but in easier fights, I just want the characters to use their default attack etc. :D

Since the patch I keep having companions (mostly Amiri and Valerie freeze show question marks over their heads. no status effect howing on their portraits.

Aand nope. Nothing fixes her AI preferring Acid Splash over an actual weapon. That does more damage. There's a lot to like in this game, and had it actually been ready when it released, it would've probably been 5 stars for me. Right now, though, I keep running into bugs and broken things every hour or so.

Same here bugs everywhere. The only reason I can see that the AI may want to use Acid splash is its a ranged touch attack. Getting her AI to use her bow, for the lovely Rapid shot feat is impossible. Also Love it when the AI was Dancing in circles while trying to get into the melee range./sigh

I play Pathfinder every week. I look through it through the guise of playing a Pathfinder game as this is supposed to be. Taking a five foot step back and casting is part of the base rules. One of the things I like about the first edition of Pathfinder is clerics could gain their powers from ideals and not deities. This looks like it will be changed in Pathfinder second edition.

tl;dr Don't be condesending @cafeine_

It;s frustrating and annoying that I hire mercenaries (playing a neutral evil character so need a couple that are compatible with my alignment) and all of my merc spell casters only attack with ranged weapons...I've been looking and trying to figure out how to set them to cast spells automatically but no luck with the settings. Am I missing something or are they still bugged to not use spells/abilities except for manually?

You can right-click a spell to put it on auto-cast on nearest target. Everything else has to be manual. Which is the way for a game like this. It shouldn't play itself and it's easy enough to make a party that'll roflstomp hard without ever casting spells in combat if you dislike it that much.

I don't mean it should play itself, special skills and such I have no problem selecting manually which is what I'm usually doing in combat. Realistically a wizard would not by default be using solely melee or ranged weapon attacks with a full spell book at their disposal. The storyline characters all use their magic attacks without having to select them so at the very least mercenaries should have AI that is typical of their class with the player having the option to set them to either conserve or go nuts casting. Being able to select auto-casting a specific spell is good, but if everyone just attacks with equipped weapons except when it is manually selected the game may as well go completely turn based instead of having an active time system that is only useful when you overpower your enemies so greatly that you don't need to worry about spells.

In most other rpgs that use real time or active battle systems(which would also be true in reality) spell casters AI by default rely on their magic unless you set it for them to use weapons instead. I enjoy the game either way but if I wanted to have to micromanage instead of macromanage my party that is a strategy rpg which is probably fine for a good aligned party but it's mildly annoying having to pause and stop the flow of battle because a character gets critical hit or melee attackers are getting decimated by enemies that an intelligent wizard could be damaging with spells.

But it's just my preference just saying it would allow for players like me to focus on the story and character building.