Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

If you're playing on Veteran or below, play what you like and don't stress your build too much.

Trap detection is based on Perception, and Maia is the only companion with decent Perception.

During ship battles, there is a positioning indicator on the bottom of the screen. Port is left, starboard is right, but just look at the arrows and the positioning indicator.

All of the named ships on the world map are involved in bounty quests and there are zero negative consequences for attacking them, so if you think you can take them in a fight, there’s no game-mechanic reason not to gank them on sight.

Upgrading your ship is expensive but a good idea. A dhow is just the right level of speed and durability to get your through most things, so don't bother dropping all your cash on a galleon or whatever unless you just cannot live without 16 cannons.

If you don't like the ship combat and want to just do boarding, it's a good idea to keep party members who aren't on active duty in fairly up-to-date gear. They will show up on deck during the battle and help you out as AI.

Most skill checks either let you pick a party member to do them or let you use their skill levels as a bonus, so you're free to spread out skills however you want.

First time through, probably a bad idea to go all in with a full party of multiclass people. Single classes aren't as versatile, but they get stronger faster and play more closely to PoE1 so they're easier to manage. Also, some party members get unique single classes. Tekehu, for example, get a special bonus as a focused Druid where his water/ice based attack spells don't deal friendly damage, letting you drop a Hail Storm on your Barbarian's head in the middle of a melee without worrying.

There's a lot of cool stuff off the beaten path and no actual time limit to the main plot, which is not that long, so once you've got all the party members feel free to go exploring.

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