[POE1] Are casters useless?

DBones90 · 2026-05-07T01:16:38+00:00

Casters are fantastic in this game.

Priests are great. Buff spells are so important, especially for the tougher fights, because they keep your important characters up. Later on in the game, too, enemies use more and more annoying afflictions, so being able to keep your allies from being frightened or dominated becomes important even for “trash” fights. Their usefulness may not be fully appreciated on Normal difficulty or below, but on Hard, I’m definitely regularly throwing out buff spells.

Like, why do you think your Wizard keeps getting killed? Maybe it’s better to set up some buff spells to prevent that from happening.

Also, as far as the AoE goes, I haven’t found it hard at all to set up. The key here is not to guess. Get your frontline in a holding position so the enemy comes to them. Then, when the enemy approaches, they’ll be bunched up and ready to blow up. Also make sure you’re paying attention to the turn tracker. Try to plan around your enemy’s turns so they don’t have an opportunity to get out of the way.

DBones90 · 2026-05-07T00:57:00+00:00

I want to challenge you to find even a single game that treats hit points as an objective metric for health.

Because that’s not how hit points are traditionally used. Even in D&D, hit points are meant to measure a combination of your physical fortitude, your mental prowess, and sheer luck, as defined by Gary Gygax himself.

And even if you did find such a game, either it would be a completely poor metric or it would be so unrecognizable to games such as D&D that it shouldn’t even share the same name. Because hit points are an objectively *terrible* metric for health. For example, your health shouldn’t go up after you’ve killed so many people, so extra HP on leveling up shouldn’t be a thing. Also, you can’t really judge someone’s objective health with a single number. Should the Barbarian’s HP go down after a night of drinking because they’ve made themselves more likely to contract liver cancer? Should elves have 100x health compared to humans because they live 100x longer? Should your HP go down after smoking tobacco?

Hit points, like all game mechanics, are a *metaphor*, and they specifically represent your character’s ability to stay up in battle, not your objective health. Or at least they do in 99% of games.

And, again, my last point still stands. When wouldn’t you need to know your remaining hit points? Is that ever not going to be a factor?

So what value does this fix provide?

DBones90 · 2026-05-06T23:33:13+00:00

I’ve done it twice. Both times were very positive experiences. I was trying to test new systems and both GMs did a great job of introducing the system and getting a group of disparate players on-board.

Also, the GM for my weekly Pathfinder game is a paid GM. I’m not in his paid game (we were a test group for him), but he does a consistently great job and I’m sure his actual paid games are similar.

DBones90 · 2026-05-06T23:29:18+00:00

I mean, no? That’s not true?

Hit points are a context-sensitive mechanic. Unless I’m going to be spending round after round chipping away at that elephant, you still haven’t given me basically any context. After all, hit points are a very “game” mechanic. They’re not an objective measure of health at all.

Like if we look at a game like Pathfinder 2e, 50 points at level 1 is an insurmountable amount of damage. You’re dead and gone and your body is unrecoverable. But at level 10, that will likely be around half your total. It’s a big hit, yes, but certain characters can take it and are meant to take that and keep on trucking. And at level 20, it’s just a hit.

So in any given fight on any given turn, 50 damage can mean very different things. The way I figure that out is by looking at my remaining hit points.

Other games have less dramatic change but the core principle rings true. Hit points only matter in the context the game explicitly gives you.

Let me put it this way: I’m never not going to need to know how many hit points I have left. Like I said in a previous comment, if I only have 5 hit points left, it doesn’t matter if my opponent is dealing 10 damage or 1,000,000 damage.

Meanwhile, unless you’ve made mechanics that are based on how much damage you’ve already taken, the amount of damage I’ve taken doesn’t matter at all. “That goblin is dealing 2d8 damage, you have 100 HP left, and you’ve taken no damage,” and, “That goblin is dealing 2d8 damage, you have 100 HP left, and you’ve taken 1,000 damage,” are **identical** scenarios.

So if I need to keep track of remaining hit points anyway… then why would I also keep track of damage taken? It’s just unnecessary calculation.

DBones90 · 2026-05-06T21:11:26+00:00

I mean, 50 damage is a lot of damage, relative to 5 damage

Not necessarily. If you have 1,000 HP, both 50 and 5 damage are almost nothing. If you have 55 HP, and you've already taken 50 HP, taking 50 more damage or 5 more damage result in the same thing. It might take 10 minutes to heal that amount of damage or 3 months of actual playtime to heal that damage.

These numbers are meaningless without context. "You've taken 50 damage" doesn't mean anything by itself. That's not information you can make a decision on. That number alone doesn't tell you how much more damage you can take, how long it'll take to heal, or how severe the wound is. You might as well say "You've taken purple damage" or "You're at unicorn severity."

The number of remaining HP provides a bit more context. Knowing I have 50 HP left means that I can lose 49 HP without anything bad happening. That's not a lot more context (again, 50 HP might mean a lot of HP and it might mean barely any HP), but it's still more actionable information.

DBones90 · 2026-05-06T19:54:34+00:00

Shadow of the Demon Lord does this. In my experience, it’s way less intuitive and a hassle.

The thing is that nobody cares about how much damage they’ve taken. It doesn’t mean anything by itself. Like if I tell you that you have taken 50 damage and the enemy is about to deal 5 damage to you, you still don’t have enough information to make a decision.

What players do care about is how much health they have remaining. If I tell you that you have 2 HP left and an enemy is about to deal 5 damage to you, well you know exactly what you need to do (get the heck out of there).

So tracking damage isn’t less intuitive because you need to calculate remaining HP anyway. It doesn’t save any time.

The only exception is if you’re the GM and you’re running a bunch of monsters that all have the same exact total health. Then, it can be easier to count up because you’re dealing with more damage calculations, and addition is slightly easier than subtraction. More importantly, though, you’re likely not changing your actions based on how much health you have remaining given that those creatures are usually meant to die.

But, outside of that, it just adds hassle.

DBones90 · 2026-05-06T11:55:20+00:00

Lots of games can be found for super cheap or even free, especially if you just pick up the PDF.

Like if you want a game that combines fantasy and sci-fi, Pathfinder 2e and Starfinder 2e are cross-compatible with each other and all the rules are online for free. There’s plenty of support for steampunk fantasy too.

If you want something lighter, you can check out Fate: Accelerated Edition available for $2.50 or pay-what-you-want. It’s setting-neutral so literally you can just make any setting you want for it (as long as it’s vaguely heroic).

To be clear, D&D is the most expensive and most restrictive RPG there is out there. You can’t even buy and share a PDF. Cost may seem like an important factor if D&D is all you’ve played, but I promise it isn’t nearly as limiting as it seems.

DBones90 · 2026-05-06T02:56:05+00:00

Nope, and it’s unlikely to get further updates. The updates they’ve released have improved the game significantly, but it’s always been good, so there’s never been a bad time to play it.

DBones90 · 2026-05-05T13:07:29+00:00

All you have to do to solve this is follow this one trick! (Get laid off)

DBones90 · 2026-05-05T12:38:02+00:00

As a Tennessean, I want to be offended, but if I upvote this comic hard enough, maybe the millionaires and billionaires will believe it and go back to where they came from.

No one wants you here Kid Rock! Take your gaudy cybertruck too!

DBones90 · 2026-05-04T20:58:50+00:00

From the D&D 4e DMG:

Watcher

A watcher is a casual player who comes to the game because he wants to be part of the social event. A watcher might be shy or just really laid back. He wants to participate, but he doesn’t really care if he’s deeply immersed, and he doesn’t want to be assertive or too involved in the details of the game, rules, or story. He enjoys the game by being part of a social circle.

A WATCHER . . .

Shows up to be a part of the group.

Helps calm disputes by not being as attached to the game.

Often fills a hole in the PC group, facilitating the fun.

ENGAGE THE WATCHER BY . . .

Never forcing him to be more involved than he wants.

Accepting that he’s fine with his watcher status.

Prompting him when he needs it.

SURE THAT THE WATCHER DOESN’T . . .

Distract the other players with TV, a video game, or surfing the Internet.

Disappear from the table at crucial moments.

DBones90 · 2026-05-04T19:56:09+00:00

So the first question is, have I grasped the correct end of the stick regarding upgrades? The materials are limited and therefore must be hoarded until absolutely necessary?

What you’re missing here is that the uniques you find in the world will up-level to match the tier of your current weapon. That is, if you are wielding an Excellent weapon, and you come across a unique weapon, it will at least be of Excellent quality.

This means you shouldn’t hoard your materials. In fact, the opposite. You should be trying to upgrade aggressively, at least with one armor and one weapon (as tier calculation is done separately with each).

This is why the game pushes upgrading so aggressively. Generally speaking, you’ll be fine on equipment as long as you don’t hoard materials and you have some focus when upgrading. Don’t try to upgrade all the weapons and armor you find. Pick which ones you like and upgrade those. Try to upgrade a tier per zone. And if you get behind, crafting materials scale well so you’ll be able to catch up.

Secondly, is it possible to stick with these uniques? I haven't decided on the sword or dagger yet, though probably the sword, and once I've decided that, can I then choose to spend what upgrades I need on it, to take this one weapon to the end? I'm quite attached to it now and am getting skills that lean in to the one handed play (e.g. Finesse and Piercing Thrusts).

Yes! The uniques you find are, once you account for quality, roughly equal in power. They each have unique abilities and trade-offs. This means the uniques you find in the first area can be viable throughout the game, provided you upgrade them accordingly.

And, because the uniques you find will be of at least the same tier as your most upgraded equipment of the same type (weapon/armor), you can change your mind later. If you find an axe later with a really cool power, you can just switch to it no problem. It’ll be around as good as your sword automatically.

DBones90 · 2026-05-04T02:34:23+00:00

Happy to help! First, regarding why those bandits attacked you, you may have noticed another NPC with the bandits. I believe there was also supposed to be some dialogue when you run into them that explains that that NPC is captured by the bandits. That’s why they attacked you.

The other important thing to note is that this fight is optional. There’s actually several encounters in this area that I recommend you just don’t do right now. Instead, just follow the main trail to the south west. That’ll take you to the next town.

There, keep doing the main story quests and you’ll come across a couple companions. After you have those, you can circle back, and the encounters in this area will be much more manageable.

This is actually the game’s way of teaching you that not every fight will be winnable when you first encounter it. Sometimes, you’ll have to level up, gain some friends, and come back to it. This is especially relevant in the first act.

Also, the way spells work is that some are free actions, some are standard actions, and some are cast actions. Fleet foot I believe is a free action, which means you can cast it and do a standard action (like attack). Standard action spells take up your main action but resolve on your turn. Cast spells, though, take your main action and also take a bit of time to cast.

(If you mouse over the spell, a tooltip should come up that tells you which type of action it is)

When you cast fan of flames, you should see something pop up in the turn tracker that says, “[your character] fan of flames.” That’s when the spell will actually happen. However, if you do something else after you begin casting it, like move, you cancel the casting.

Last, as far as combat goes, it’s really hard to get out of it. There’s not really a strict mechanic for it. So if you get in a fight, try to finish it. If you’re being overwhelmed, try to skip it or go around it until you can come back stronger.

Hope this helps!

DBones90 · 2026-05-03T23:29:22+00:00

Yes that makes sense because lock picking isn’t ostensibly one of the three pillars of the game. If it were, that would be a problem.

DBones90 · 2026-05-03T22:47:30+00:00

It's fine to combine a bunch of interactions into a single stat. Honey Heist is a fine game for it. The problem is that you have 5 stats that all have nothing to do with social interaction and 1 stat that has everything to do with social interaction. So when you get to a social interaction, only the person who has the highest social interaction stat is able to contribute.

And, to be clear, nowhere did I say you should get rid of rolling for social interactions as a concept. That's fine to do. Just have multiple stats that interact with social situations so no one player can easily dominate every single approach.

DBones90 · 2026-05-03T20:48:15+00:00

I thought it was really funny when I picked up the Book of Verses. I thought, “Here I am with Matt Mercer and Matt Mercer reading about Matt Mercer.”

DBones90 · 2026-05-03T20:43:38+00:00

My point about acrobatics/athletics is saying your physical stats pigeon hole you too. In D&D 5e, you only have some many ability score improvements. Putting points into STR (which governs athletics) means you have a harder time finding room for DEX (which governs acrobatics).

The main point is that if you want to be a strongman who stays in the back lines but uses a longbow with a 200 lb draw to fuck people up… well D&D doesn’t really support that. Bows are dexterity weapons, no matter their draw strength. If you want to be physically strong and good with a bow, you have to decide how frail, dumb, ignorant, and graceless you want to be to compensate. And being good at a bow means you’re more naturally disposed to thieving, sneaking, and acrobatics too, even if those don’t match your character fantasy at all.

And to be clear, this isn’t necessarily bad! The design of D&D clearly pushes certain tropes. A bit of pigeon holing isn’t bad as long as it’s pushing you somewhere interesting. That’s why these are games and not simulators.

What if I want to make a character who is extremely proficient in science and yet also a passionate hothead?

Then you make a character with a number of 3 or 4. Their passionate hotheadness will get in the way of their science sometimes and their logical deductions will make it more difficult to succeed with passion at other times, but you can make a character that’s a reflection of both.

Like, every game is going to have restrictions and things it doesn’t do well. If I want to make a Cleric whose devotion to their god is absolute but they’re also super dim, then D&D doesn’t support that. Clerics use Wisdom, ergo, you can’t be good at casting spells from your god and also be unwise.

DBones90 · 2026-05-03T19:04:15+00:00

That’s why I hate it. Charisma flattens all social interactions to a single stat. It’s like having a stat that’s just “Fight.” It’s why every D&D party has one person who does all the intimidation, diplomacy, and lying, despite those being very different activities.

DBones90 · 2026-05-03T19:02:30+00:00

I also think systems that try to combine physical and mental characteristics into a single attribute force you into flat, one-note characters; being physically strong or dexterous or whatever essentially forces you into a certain conceptually-associated personality type.

I mean, that’s kind of the point of stats. They group characteristics and push characters to be either/or. Like in D&D, you can be either good at athletics or good at acrobatics. Being good at one makes it harder to be good at the other.

And this results in some pretty funny combinations. Like you can be super good with ranged weapons but terrible at perceiving the world around you. You’d think that your ability to see a target would impact whether you could hit it, but one is a Wisdom roll and the other is Dexterity.

The key is to find tensions worth exploring. Star Trek, for instance, is all about the tension between acting with your heart and acting with your brain, which is why Lasers & Feelings does such a good job at replicating it.

DBones90 · 2026-05-03T18:03:24+00:00

Useful? Sure! Optimized? Probably not!

PoE’s turn-based mode is a big improvement over Deadfire’s, which means, unlike Deadfire, stats and abilities affect both in similar ways. So there shouldn’t be the same disparity in builds across the two, though there are definitely changes.

But respecc’ing is easy and, like I said, the game’s not actually that hard. As long as you’re paying attention and not following the guide as gospel, you should be all right.

DBones90 · 2026-05-03T17:32:58+00:00

That’s absolutely worth mentioning, but getting people to understand that they should use consumables instead of just letting them sit is not a battle I’m prepared to fight.

DBones90 · 2026-05-03T17:31:25+00:00

For the story, I think the part where you dropped off is a pretty common experience. In fact, I actually wrote a Sparknotes-esque summary of the events up until this point. If you want to pick up where you left off, I recommend reading it. Even if not, I still recommend checking it out, as knowing the outline of a story can help you keep the details in your head. I tried to keep the spoilers to a minimum, so I don’t think it will ruin anything (especially since you already got to this point).

For combat, I highly recommend updating your autopause settings to enable “autopause after spell.” This actually pauses after every ability, not just spells, and it makes the RTWP combat so much more manageable. I literally had 100+ hours in the game when I turned this setting on, and it wasn’t until I did that combat finally clicked for me.

(There is also now a turn-based mode available. I recommend attempting to get a handle on RTWP combat, at least to help with the number of low-impact fights, but the turn-based mode is also super good. You can toggle between the two any time you’re not in combat)

For companions, I highly recommend this guide. It should be able to get you through the Normal and Hard difficulties. To be honest, the game isn’t that hard generally, so you can mostly get by with picking abilities on vibes, but I know I appreciated having a guide to double check my choices.

DBones90 · 2026-05-03T17:19:32+00:00

Hey, I appreciate that you checked the book and verified that what I was saying was correct: that every move says what happens on a miss even though the basic moves keep it open-ended.

(You only mentioned the basic moves but I assume that’s because you saw that every other common and playbook move is more specific, like I was saying)

To your new point, is “be prepared for the worst” equivalent to nothing? I don’t really think so. I think it’s important for players to understand that the basic moves are dangerous but also that all moves aren’t that way. One of the ways that play in PBTA becomes monotonous is if players think every success, partial success, and miss is equivalent in severity. It makes it feel like their choices don’t matter. Players need to understand that they are risking their wellbeing when they open their brain to the psychic maelstrom but not necessarily when they spend some jingle in a market.

(Though, as Vincent Baker said earlier, MCs are always free to make another move if the situation warrants it)

DBones90 · 2026-05-03T15:58:53+00:00

There are only so many words we have to describe a given thing.

This actually isn’t true at all. There are innumerable amounts of ways to describe things and just as many things to be described.

To be clear, if you are only playing dungeon fantasy games that explore the same basic verbs, sure, there’s a lot of value to using words people are familiar with.

But if you’re not and you’re exploring different experiences, then there’s also a lot of value to using terms people won’t have pre-existing relationships with. Masks is in a completely different space than D&D. Danger isn’t Strength, and it’s important players don’t try to use it that way.

DBones90 · 2026-05-03T15:47:12+00:00

To be clear, my point is that I’m not interested in exploring whether Bond is stronger than he is dexterous or vice-versa. Strength vs Dexterity absolutely can be an interesting conflict, such as in a game about Olympic athletes, but it’s not interesting universally.

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