InEffect: You were literally guided to a crypt by the hand to get another companion and old sycamore is right next to it and there are tracks leading to it. pretty self-evident what the game wants you to do.

I am not the greatest advisor when it comes to the "natural" progression, though. That was 1500h of gameplay ago for me.

Jaethal is... underwhelming, till midgame at the least, and only if you turn her into a cleric. Inquisitor is a class that doesn't translate all too well into an environment where you are expected to win a dozen of encounters before rest. At least she gets a neat SLA to compensate.

Amiri is the worst. Literally. HP tanks suck. Give her some polearm or enlarge her if you must use her for some reason.

Valerie is awesome and you can skin that cat is so many ways... She can be anything so long as it involves being on the front-line and stacking AC.

All of that doesn't matter if you don't play on unfair, though. Just buff a bit and look at your party killing stuff. MC should have like 25-30 AC at level2 and just facetank everything in the earlygame.

Bezhukov: Amiri makes a great Freebooter. The bane move action delays her from rushing into melee (once you get a feel for it and give her some more speed, you'll be able to do it and charge in the same turn), she gets to lead blade her big weapons, and she can use either menacing or two handed style to pick and choose the good feats without the prereqs.
Later on you can use bane and cleave together, then bane plus vital strike.

You can also make her a defender of the true world to go double smilodons at level eleven that wreck fae with five attack pounces.

InEffect: She is worse than a merc on every level, including personality. Combined with the worst base class in the game. It doesn't matter what crutches you could use to "fix" her. She is and always will be worse than a merc that does the same with a better stat/race/feat selection at level 1. Linzy and Harrim are in the same boat, but those at least don't have as bad of a class selected, although, between Harrim and Amiri it's a close call which is the worst companion in the game to choose.

ColinMacLaren: Thanks for the advice. I forwent the idea of a battle cleric and made three toons to toy around with in act 1.

One is the DEX Sword Saint. He needs a couple of levels to become somewhat competent.
I completely get wrecked. My party after alignment decisions at the end of the Prologue is
MC/Valerie/Jeathal/Amiri. Thorn fort was kinda OK, but on the way to the Abandoned House I run into a group of the Techno League and my level 2 party just gets destroyed. I am also clueless how this group is supposed to beat the Bear-like Treant at the Temple of the Elk.

Second run was with a Druid and Val/Linzi/Amiri. Techno League went like a breeze. The Treant gave me trouble and went down on tenth try or something. Went pure Druid since Defender of the True World does not get spontaneous summoning (any more?) Druid was the class I wanted to play in the first place, but everywhere in the forums I was told they are bad.

Third run was with a Sylvan Sorcerer but I only finished the Prologue so far.

How am I supposed to beat these encounters when the C still needs like two or three levels to get going? Is is just me or am I too stupid for this game if I am already struggling at the very beginning?

heliar: I always did Ancient Tomb first, then Technic League, then Temple of the Elk, then old Sycamore. I had no issues with this order, and my PC is a generalist wizard, so he's pretty much useless early in the game. I play basically at challenging without encumbrance.

heliar: I always did Ancient Tomb first, then Technic League, then Temple of the Elk, then old Sycamore. I had no issues with this order, and my PC is a generalist wizard, so he's pretty much useless early in the game. I play basically at challenging without encumbrance.

heliar: Isn't it a trade-off? Would you be able to proceed to a book episode in the tomb?

heliar: For me, it was an issue of spells per day. Grease is awesome, but I could only cast it four times per rest at lower levels. I probably should have been resting more often though.

Bezhukov: In general you want to try to keep rests to a minimum. Time is money. Bards (who know how to use lingering performance), Alchemists, and Freebooters are great because they get a lot more oomph per rest. Freebooter is unlimited with no save.

Defender of the True World does get spontaneous summoning, they just can't summon fae (like boogeymen). Its the perplexing Feyspeaker which doesn't, and also gets lousy BAB. Druids are good on high difficulties because you can control the battlefield with difficult terrain while giving your team mass feather step (which lasts forever) while clogging the battlefield with your pet and summons.

Bezhukov: Without encoumbrance is big.

Bezhukov: Barb two is fine for more speed (increasing charge/pounce range), uncanny dodge and a little rage in a pinch. Defender of the True World Amiri is already using Cloak of the Winter Wolf so another bite is great. You really need to open up your mind a little, or more like a lot, you're only thinking of endgame soloing instead of team dynamics throughout the game. By midgame you've got so many ways to get stats that your min/maxxing is only getting you marginal returns. Tactical options are more valuable.

You've demonstrated that you don't know how to buff your team or debuff enemies, but for those of us who do eleven full attacks from anywhere on the battlefield (70 speed is easy) with huge boosts and invulnerabilities vs fae is just fine thanks.

InEffect: You have more rounds of song than spells. Lingering is just an action tax for no good reason. While it's ok and usable late-game when it's at least a quick action, for most of the game it will take too much, and will also slow your pace, which is not nice. Spending hours in total over the course of the game managing the song is a waste.

Freebooter is nice in theory. In practice there is no way you have a slot for him. Even someone with 4-6 levels of booter is a liability to the party as his bonuses won't compensate the damage of someone useful. Like an alchemist of any persuasion.

Also time between rests is not that long. You have to have your best CC and buffs running and will likely be limited to 10 minutes of real-time per rest due to that. If you can steamroll everything with minimal investments - up your difficulty to unfair.

Druids are good as a solo degenerate unfair grinders. That's it. In party play their main gimmick is harmful, because said ground spells last a million years. Sure you can mod in dismissal, but that's not a part of core game-play. You can also mod in 100 all stats and stomp unfair - that's just as representative of intended game-play.

InEffect: Not on unfair. You have to expend resources there. Cheapest you can solve a fight is stinking cloud(assuming the enemy is not immune) and buff time. If the enemy is immune to stinking cloud the fight will automatically be more costly as there is no equivalent spell. Either way, to stay on curve with your DC's you will have to use heightened clouds and that means 4-5 encounters, which broadly falls into 10 minutes of in-game time.

InEffect: Again, problem is not a booter himself, but that opportunity cost he comes at. You have to have 2 tanks(both have to be arcane based cause mirror image is a must) a full arcane caster, a cleric, RTA spammer(preferably jubi for camp ability). That leaves exactly 1 spot that is always better served by another damage dealer and not booter who will be sitting with a thumb up his rear no matter how you spin it. Even another RTA spammer will be better. And booter's more micro, that makes you go slower.

InEffect: Actually you don't get immunity to most of those with featherstep. It works literally only on natural difficult terrain and that's it. You have to have wings to ignore it and even then it's wonky and doesn't work for better half of the spells.

InEffect: Hard - sure. On hard you pretty much just buff and auto-attack things to death. On unfair... no. Aint happening. Maybe in the final stretch, but not before late teens.

InEffect: I do what works outside of a fantasy land and save-scumming the game. Facts are you have to bruteforce the game on unfair. Bard aint getting more than 34-ish DC at top end. It's laughable. Same as dumping 14 levels to get +2 AB or wasting actions and a character slot for booter stuff. Could I make it work despite it being bad? Yes, I actually did do full bard. It's shite and requires way too much luck even on a regular mobs AND is absolutely useless late as everything in endgame is either immune to will attacks or has like 30 saves. And wasting an action to maybe stun for 1 round is just as bad. That leaves using bard as a melee, where he sure needs quite a bit of crutches to ramp AC to 70, so pure bard is a liability.
IDK why you even value that 2AB that highly to begin with. Proper saint, for example, has AB well into 50s even without community which would launch it into stratosphere. 2AB wont make or break it and for most of the game it would be the same as a bard6 - party is not born level 20.
Priest... Blade barrier is nice, because all duration spells are good. Archon aura is a decent bonus that doesn't cost much, Still, it can be safely ignored, unless you use a merc cleric with maxed Wis and alchemist dips for endgame, because it's too unreliable. Community domain is good and animate dead at level5 is awesome and actually is a saving grace of the class. Too bad all companion clerics are dumpster-tier. Jaethat is the only passable one and even that mostly due to free animate dead casts that totally carry the day in earlygame.

left1000: Really though, the thing I think I don't understand most... is... what's the point of vital strikes at all?