YMMV / Pillars of Eternity

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Eothas. Did he really set out to become a conqueror? Or was his invasion of the Dyrwood a desperate gambit on his part to end the plan of Woedica? (The answer is revealed in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire.)
• Anti-Climax Boss: The final boss of the White March storyline, the Kraken, has no real relevance to the overall plot and is vulnerable to the majority of status effects, making the boss very easy to lock down with the likes of Paralysis after its tentacles are disposed of. The entire final area can be quite easy in general, due to the party having access to two different weapons that can deliver a One-Hit Kill to the primary enemy type in them.
• Base-Breaking Character: Durance. Some players find him to be an interesting and morally complicated individual with a very sordid past that ties in well with the main plot of the game. Others see him as a thoroughly unpleasant and downright repulsive human being who's leaped well past the Moral Event Horizon. The fact that his personal quest is structured differently than everyone else's barring the Grieving Mother (requiring you to either put him in your party and talk to him over the course of the game or else just sit in your castle and sleep whenever he tells you he's done talking if you don't want to use him) doesn't help.
• Broken Base: A backer-submitted poem about a man who was Driven to Suicide after discovering that the woman he slept with was actually a man due to getting pissed drunk the night before was changed after getting the backer's approval and edit. Some applaud the developers for being sensitive towards transgender fans and removing a poem based on a stereotype often used to attack trans people, while others see this as an example of Political Overcorrectness, with some people pointing out that this is a Crapsack World where such a thing is common anyway. This was further complicated with the revised poem being a Take That! from the user to the people who complained, which only led to more arguments in the fanbase.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Finding St. Ydwen's Redeemer and unlocking its true potential with a character who can wield it well would make Vessel-type enemies easier to handle, as the great sword has 25% chance to instantly destroy Vessels (mainly physical undead and constructs) on hits or crits. The final fight with Thaos involves giant statues.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Your dealings with Gordy, the boy in Defiance Bay that wants the dagger, can be this. If you've already found the secret he tells you about, he offers another one - namely that his dad often visits the Salty Mast. A possible response is to tell him that his father doesn't love him or his mom, resulting in the kid breaking down into tears. Then, spotting him later shows that his dad is confronting him about the dagger, thinking he'd stolen it — the player can cheerfully deny having purchased the dagger for him, resulting in Gordy getting punished.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • The entire Spirit category of enemies, almost all of which have their own infuriating tricks:
    • Shadows, shades, phantoms and specters appear in two early-game locations, one of which is plot-mandatory (Caed Nua) and the other being accessible right in the first town (the Temple of Eothas). At low levels, all three types of spirit deal high amounts of damage even to dedicated tanks like fighters and paladins, and some of them also have a chance to stun on hit, and perhaps most annoyingly, will ignore frontline fighters in favor of teleporting directly to fragile backline characters. Specters, on the other hand, can instead stun-lock squishy party members to death from extreme ranges. Shades spawn even more shadows in, though fortunately once the summoning shade is gone, its summoned shadows dissipate as well.
    • Cean Gŵlas and their White March counterparts the Battery Sirens. The former have a constant Frighten aura around them (which reduces Accuracy, among other attribute debuffs), but what really makes them frustrating, however, is their paralyzing shrieks with deceptively high area of effect. If there's more than one of them, they will shriek one after another to keep entire parties helpless for half a minute.
    • The White March also introduces Wraiths, who along with Battery Sirens, can use the Abduction spell. Because Wraiths usually position themselves far behind the main swarm of spirits or vessels, they often cast Abduction on frontline tank characters to teleport them behind their own line and then stun them, leaving the party's backline wide open.
  • Fampyrs, who tend to cast Charm and Dominate spells right when combat begins. Any fight involving them (especially if there's more than one) often devolves into a chaotic mess, as even the most carefully-considered and tightly-packed formations start tearing into each other on top of the packs of lesser undead that often accompany them.
  • Monks become this in the White March, where the fights put greater emphasis on using support spells over pure damage. When backed up by paladin and priest support, monks can devastate even a high-level, well-buffed team due to their tendency to dive the party's backline with Flagellant's Path — and this when they don't just scatter the party's frontline with Force of Anguish, both knocking them aside and leaving them prone and useless for several seconds. The innate abilities of monks also mean that they only get stronger as the fight drags on; should they take enough damage without being killed, they will use Duality of Mortal Presence to spawn two hard-hitting copies of themselves — and at the Abbey of the Fallen Moon and Crägholdt, monks almost always appear in groups.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Adaryc Cendamyr from The White March — Part II expansion has proven to be a quite popular character. That he is literally a kindred spirit of the Watcher — that is, being a Watcher himself — along with the fact that he can potentially become one of the Watcher's most friendly inclined allies outside of the companions, has endeared him to many a player.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Waidwen's Legacy has been going on for fifteen years at the game's start. Backing the goddess Hylea returns the missing souls to these children, and the game treats this as a problem only for those who thought killing the soulless children was a mercy. This ignores teenagers with the minds of infants. Also, the thousands of wichts (children with the souls of ravenous animals grafted into their bodies) roaming the countryside.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Edér is easily the most popular companion of the series, winning every Obsidian companion poll by a wide margin. When Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire added romances, naturally most fans wanted to romance him, only to be crushed when he wasn't available. Cue Edér romance mods within weeks of the game's release.
• Game-Breaker:
  • As noted in the Demonic Spiders entry, phantoms have the ability to stun enemies on a hit, and once they stun something, their subsequent attacks get Sneak Attack bonus damage. Chanters can summon a phantom from the start of the game, and unlike other spellcasters, they don't run out of spells. At higher levels, they also gain the ability to summon animated weapons, which in the first game are immune to nearly all status effects and come with powerful offensive abilities usually reserved for fighters, paladins and rangers. And in Deadfire, a high-level chanter can even summon dragons.
  • The cipher's Mental Binding spell. It's a paralysis spell that's fast, fairly cheap for a cipher spell, and most importantly, available by third level. This is the absolutely earliest one can inflict paralysis, allowing ciphers to shut down plenty of enemies right from the start. Considering one can be only a few hundred experience short of level three before they even reach Gilded Vale...
  • Some combinations of spells can quickly lead to the demise of your enemies. The wizard in particular has Chill Fog which deals Freeze damage but, more importantly, blind your targets (which reduce their Accuracy and Deflection by a whooping 25 and 20 respectively!), Expose Vulnerabilities, which lower damage reduction, deflection and concentration of your foes (and there is no risk of friendly fire while using it) and Call to Slumber, which make characters prone, preventing them from taking any actions and reducing once again their deflection.
  • The almighty Devotions of the Faithful priest spell, which not only dramatically increase your character's accuracy (+20 for both melee and ranged), but also decreases your enemy's accuracy by the same amount, while improving your Might by 4 and decreasing your enemy's Might by 10. This one spell can absolutely cripple your opponent while significantly buffing your allies.
  • Gaze of Adragan, a 6th level wizard spell, can petrify multiples foes. It comes pretty late, but once you can cast it, every single encounter of the game becomes a joke if your targets are petrified, since not only are they stunned, but they also completely lose their damage reduction, and the effect lasts for 20 very long seconds (and since wizards usually have high Intelligence — which prolongs the duration of any status effects — your foes can be petrified for over 30 seconds quite easily, leaving you ample time to kill them). Scrolls of Petrification have a similar effect and can be crafted from relatively common ingredients.
    • Really, anything that petrifies the enemy counts, since petrification doubles any and all damage they receive. And that is after it was heavily nerfed: it used to quadruplicate the damage received by the petrified target. Even after the nerf, it is enough to trivialize any and all fights, up to and including the Adra Dragon, Thaos and the Sky Dragon.
  • Also the cipher spell Amplified Wave. It's a level 6 spell, so you'll get it only very late but boy is it ever powerful. It's cast on a friendly and inflicts an enormous foe-only AoE, dealing a substantial amount of crush damage and knocking enemies prone. Encounters that would have been challenging like banshees and shades become an absolute joke as they'll be knocked down for basically the whole time. And this being a cipher spell, you can cast it every encounter multiple times if you wish, as there's no limit on daily usage.
  • In Deadfire, the druid spell Call to the Primordials summons several oozes at random. The true gem among them is the Bog Ooze, which has unlimited uses of several powerful spell-like abilities, with Insect Plague inflicting damage over time on enemies and lowering their Constitution and their ability to heal off damage, while Foul Wave damages and stuns enemies in a line similar to the Druid spell Overwhelming Wave, but is party-friendly.
  • In Deadfire, characters can unlock level 9 spells and abilities. For wizards, Minoletta's Missile Salvo bombards a small area with scores of magic missiles for staggering amounts of damage. Ciphers can tear down even the tankiest foes with Death of 1000 Cuts, and Druids can devastate a battlefield with Great Maelstrom.
• Genius Bonus:
  • The orlans are like a sort of hybrid between hobbits and cat people, and have been constantly enslaved and victimized by all the larger kith races, to the point that they've been driven further into the wild or resorted to guerrilla warfare. This is as likely as not inspired by an interview by Tolkien, where he denied The Lord of the Rings being a direct allegory to WWII because, among other reasons, both the humans on Aragorn's side and Sauron's side would have enslaved the hobbits since they were so small and easily dominated.
  • The chanter class is basically The Bard, but powered by necromancy; chanting stirs whatever ghosts are nearby to aid the chanter's allies and hinder their enemies. While they still have the popular Summon Magic trope, as a whole the class is much closer to mythological necromancers than the classic goth-flavored Mook Maker. Bonus points if you make your Watcher a chanter, for the full suite of white and black necromancy.
  • In the first game, Rain Blights are immune to electricity damage. It may seem odd for water elementals to be immune to electricity as opposed to being highly vulnerable, until one remembers that pure water is actually a poor conductor of electricity. Most water in the real world is conductive because of salt or other impurities, but the Rain Blights, as creatures of pure water, are nonconductive as a result.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In Aloth's personal quest, a sanitarium consultant cheerfully asks Aloth to slip into a soul-measuring machine that looks like a rusty medieval torture device. Naturally, Aloth declines. This is hilarious until one reads Aloth's short story, which reveals that while at the academy some classmates illegally acquired one and tried to test it on him. He narrowly avoided being the test subject, while the one who did became a drooling vegetable. No wonder he doesn't want to get anywhere near that thing.
• He's Just Hiding: The game makes it clear that Eothas was nuked and destroyed. Indeed, he is the only god you can't speak with during act 3 and 4; even the ones who refuse you at Teir Evron, Wael and Woedica, prove themselves quite alive at other times. Many believe that he somehow survived, that he is bidding his time, or that his resurrection just takes a while. Some little details also reinforce the possibility that he is not quite dead, since the candles in his temple never stopped burning and he is actually the second god to be killed while in Eora, and Abydon did come back eventually (if somewhat diminished). Also, the Watcher can be a priest of Eothas, and still cast spells; while spells are explicitly cast from intense belief in a god's philosophies rather than directly derived from gods, it's ambiguous whether or not it's possible to be a priest without any god to at least provide the "spark". Eventually, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire confirms that Eothas is indeed still very alive.
• Magnificent Bastard: Thaos Ix Arkannon, the immortal grandmaster of the Leaden Key. Millenia ago, Thaos led an Inquisition that tortured and executed anyone who refused to worship Thaos's gods. When one heretic named Iovara led a rebellion against Thaos, he convinced a close acquaintance of Iovara to lead her into a trap so she could be tortured and executed. Thaos later formed the Leaden Key, a secret society dedicated to hiding the gods' secrets. Thaos manipulated the entire world for millennia, with only a handful of people being aware that he exists. When the animancers in the Dyrwood come close to learning the gods' secrets, Thaos resolves to discredit and ban animancy. He uses soul manipulating machines to cause nearly all children in the Dyrwood to be Hollowborn, making it appear to be divine retribution for the death of the god Eothas. He prepares to feed the stolen souls to the goddess Woedica, so she can use the new power to hide the gods' secrets. He sabotages high profile animancy experiments, in one case causing a zombie outbreak in a major city. Eventually, Duc Aevar, ruler of the Dyrwood holds a hearing to discuss banning animancy. The Watcher takes the opportunity to expose Thaos and the Leaden Key. However, Thaos possesses an animancer into murdering Aevar, causing horrific anti-animancy riots to break out. This usually ends with animancy banned in the Dyrwood.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • All the gods, to some extent, and technically there's one other very brief scene, but Wael in particular tries to convince you to cast the thousands of Hollowborn souls to parts unknown. It's very bizarre, has no reward and there's no actual reason to do so other than because you can. And to Wael's credit, their proposal is tempting.
  • The Master Below when you finally encounter them. Despite the hints that the Master is Od Nua, it turns out the master is really a female adra dragon who turns out to be one of the most difficult opponents in the game.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • When managing the player's fortress, some events (tax raising, length of companions offscreen adventures, and various random events) are based on a special in-game clock, occurring in "turns" instead of using the normal calendar; one turn passes each time the party completes a quest. While it forces the player to act in the game instead of allowing them to exploit the system (i.e. rest continuously and amass infinite money and resources generated from the keep), linking this feature to quest completion has some unfortunate consequences. You can gain several turns in a row then none for a long time, depending on how fast you complete quests, and it eventually is stopped when you completed all the quests. Also, to benefit most from the keep, you need to rush to Caed Nua with a low-level party^note and at this point, there's only four plot companions available, though you already can recruit custom companions while completing as little quests as possible, which is especially counterintuitive because Caed Nua's courtyard and dungeon are filled with Demonic Spiders.
  • Prior to Patch 3.0, the skills Athletics and Survival were basically essential for all characters, regardless of build - Athletics determined how long a character could adventure before they incurred the debilitating Fatigue debuff, and Survival increased the effectiveness of consumable items: the former essentially put a hard timer on how long you could go before burning a limited camping supply or returning to a town, and the latter maximized consumable healing and buffing items. After the patch Athletics instead provides a scaling, per-encounter healing ability (with fatigue relegated to certain dialog and choice outcomes) and Survival provides powerful buffs after camping.
  • The "multi-classing" universal talents that grant class features are nearly all terrible, considering they take up a valuable talent slot and grant very underwhelming benefits: the Chanter talent Rhymer's Summon ^note Summon two skeletons once per encounter, and can't be used within 15 seconds of starting combat. is often cited as the worst talent in the game. Only the Rogue and Fighter talents are spared, since Sneak Attacks and passive healing that scale based on percentages are useful to a lot of different builds.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The first act of the game is both the hardest and most linear part of the game. You're restricted to the town of Gilded Vale and surrounding wilderness, with less than a handful of companions to choose from, a small selection of sidequests to gain experience from, and the Shadow enemies encountered can be immensely difficult given your low level. Only after meeting the master of Caed Nua does the game open up and become a lot more sandbox: the stronghold feature is unlocked as are the Bounties, all the companions can be recruited, the Bonus Dungeon of Od Nua is available, the Broken Bridge to Defiance Bay and Dyrford Town is repaired and the White March expansion can finally be accessed.
• Spiritual Successor: To the Infinity Engine games, all of which used a version of 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, modified for real time with pause gameplay instead of turns. Pillars of Eternity uses a rules engine that is very similar to D&D 3.5. Specifically, both systems share:
  • Six analogous but differently named primary stats. Pillars does its best to make stats more streamlined and generically useful, however, with tweaks like Might setting all damage (not just melee), making it useful for ranged characters and spellcasters.
  • Four defenses that cover the same four kinds of attacks (single target physical, area of effect physical, bodily intrusion, mental attacks).
  • The same number of classes. Pillars replaces the bard with the very similar chanter (both characters with limited spellcasting, medium durability, and powers based on song), rolls the sorceror into the wizard, and adds the cipher to its base lineup — a casting class focusing on mind-affecting Psychic Powers thematically similar to D&D's psion, but mechanically quite distinct, generating the Focus points needed to cast its spells by attacking with weapons. Tellingly, the Pillars classes not only gain most of the same abilities as their D&D inspirations, they gain them at the same levels, with the same power spikes in the level curve.
  • Awarding customizable perks every few levels, some of them meant to strengthen class abilities and others to grant generic bonuses. They're given different names from D&D's feats, but share the same function.
• Strawman Has a Point: Pallegina often criticizes the Vailian Republics' Council of Ducs as being too short-sighted, to the point where she considers going against their orders to end trade deals with the Dyrwood in favor of the Glanfathans. However, the Dyrwood's problems are so dire that only an act of a very specific god will actually allow her plan to work. The ducs can hardly be blamed for not considering that possibility, and looking at how most of the endings play out, their plan appears pretty sound by all appearances, and Pallegina herself ends up looking like the one who's short-sighted.
• That One Attack:
  • Charm and Dominate spells are vicious, especially considering how common they are in the late game.
  • Any of the above listed spells when used against your party, for obvious reasons.
• That One Level: Related to the Demonic Spiders entry, the Temple of Eothas in Gilded Vale can be this, depending on how early in the game you take it on — its second level is absolutely filled with Shadows. The "Buried Secrets" quest seems to be intended to be completed as soon as the Watcher arrives in Gilded Vale, but the second floor can be extremely dangerous without a full party or at lower levels.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Some players were disappointed to find out the prologue's companions were killed in a cutscene once you leave the ruins, especially after discovering that Heodan is the only pregenerated Rogue of the game (prior to The White March; even with White March, there's still some adventuring to be done before recruiting another pregenerated rogue).
• The Woobie: Aloth's entire life was a never-ending ball of pure suck before he met the Watcher. His father was a drunken abuser who beat him black and blue over every little mistake until the day a particularly traumatic beating caused a previous personality to Awaken, who broke his father's arm. Aloth's mother (who was largely absent before and after) then encouraged him to hide Iselmyr lest he be shunned as a criminal or madman. Aloth then spent years living in terror of discovery, and his short story reveals that his mother did jack all to help him find a patron apart from the abusive noble his father served as he neared graduation from the Academy. In desperation, he turned to a group of aspiring (illegal) animancers, who acquired an illegal soul-reading machine that he narrowly avoided being the test subject for by manipulating his bully into testing it instead, and said bully was rendered a drooling vegetable. Aloth was then picked up by the Leaden Key, who manipulated his guilt, dislike of animancy, and desire to get away from his father by posting him in Dyrwood. When the Watcher finds him, he's been deserted by his contact for months, separated from everything he's ever known, and harassed by a number of Dyrwoodans who hate him for being an Aedyran Elf. He's so scared, alone, and desperate for any kind of direction that he jumps at the chance to travel with you. It can still be even that, if the Watcher opts to be cruel to him and/or reject him at a critical moment, causing him to commit suicide.
• Underused Game Mechanic: The option for Unlimited Stash is enabled by default, meaning the whole party can access the bottomless common inventory as long as they're out of combat, which renders characters individual inventories redundant.

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