0. Sources
- Caelinus, Steam Community, “Pillars of Eternity: Basic Combat Guide” - 2015-03-27
- Pillars of Eternity Wiki, “Attributes”
- Pillars of Eternity Wiki, “Defense”
- Pillars of Eternity Wiki, “Combat”
- Pillars of Eternity Wiki, “Attack Resolution”
Note to self
if, for whatever reason, I decide to want to cheese this game or use like the ideal strategy for combat, I should remember this page
1. Basics
- Don’t play in real time, take the time to think
- Players determine Attributes during character creation
- Defenses are stats based on level. Greater defense = greater chance of attacker missing
- Damage affects both endurance and health, meaning health can run out despite endurance being full
- HP restoring items are rare
- Damage reduction directly subtracts the hit from a corresponding attack
- Withdrawing in combat results in Disengagement and is met with a disengagement attack, which has an accuracy and damage boost
2. Attributes
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Might | affects physical and magical attacks, healing, and fortitude |
| Constitution | affects endurance, health, and fortitude |
| Dexterity | affects attack speed and reflex |
| Perception | affects interrupt, accuracy, and reflex |
| Intellect | affects AOE, ability duration, will |
| Resolve | affects concentration,1 deflection, will |
3. Defenses
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Deflection | affects resistance against direct melee and ranged attacks |
| Reflex | affects ability to dodge AOE attacks |
| Fortitude | affects resistance against body system attacks2 like poison and disease |
| Will | affects resistance against mental attacks |
4. Notable Action & Passive Stats
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Interrupt | when you attack an enemy while they are performing an action (e.g., casting a spell, reloading, or using consumables), a concentration roll will determine if they get interrupted or not. If they are, it means that they are paralyzed for a certain period. |
| Concentration | affects resistance to interrupt |
| Duration | affects how long an attack or ability lasts |
| Health | when a character’s health runs out, they are maimed (i.e. stuck at 1 hp). Characters die once their health runs out twice |
| Endurance | is represented by green diamonds on top of character. Running out of them will result to the character getting knocked out and only recovering after combat |
| Accuracy | is compared to their corresponding defense, affecting a character’s chance to land an attack.1 |
5. Attack Resolution
Table information below exactly quoted from the “Attack Resolution” page of the Pillars of Eternity wiki
| Outcome | Effect | Roll | Condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miss | Attack has no effect | 01-15 | <16 |
| Graze | -50% damage or duration | 16-50 | ≤50 |
| Hit | Standard damage and duration | 51-100 | |
| Critical Hit | +50% damage or duration | 101+ | ≥101 |
6. Indicators
- The yellow bar below the green diamonds and also on top of the character represents the recovery time for the character to act again
- Red line shows the enemy’s active target, whereas green line shows the party character’s active target
7. Tips
- Use fighters with Defender ability to keep enemies at bay. Enemies usually move in a straight direction and will avoid disengaging; therefore they are forced to fight against whoever is targeting them. In other words, you can use Tanky characters to block enemies from targeting your softer allies (since they can only engage/target 1 character at a time)
- While Tanky characters tank, use the distraction for ranged fighters to find the best positions to attack while also avoiding dangers/engagements
- In terms of AOE attacks, red will hit everyone including allies, yellow only hits enemies
- It is generally good practice to keep healers at bay during combat (so don’t let them do auto attacks) so that they are immediately available when needed
- Use crowd control to fight against enemies which break out of engagement and target softer characters
- Use knockbacks, knockdowns, confusions, and dominations for allowing frontlines to retreat safely
- Focus on high damage enemies, oftentimes the ranged foes
Footnotes
-
For example, you roll a d100 and get an 87. Your 18 accuracy is compared with the 25 deflection of enemy, giving you a modifier of 18 - 25 = -7. So it will be computed alongside the roll to get the hit threshold, meaning 87-7 = 80 → 100% Damage and Duration (i.e., hit) ↩ ↩2
-
I think body system attacks are akin to ailments in other games ↩