History VideoGame / PillarsOfEternityIIDeadfire

* TrueCompanions: Played straight with the returning party members, but completely averted with [[spoiler:Maia, Serefen and Tekehu. Each of them are firmly loyal to their respective factions unto death, and will not compromise their loyalty to them no matter how well the Watcher treats them or how close they become. This will inevitably cause conflict and betrayal when the endgame begins and the Watcher firmly allies with one of the factions. The only way to avert this is by going the extra mile to reach Ukaizo without any of the factions' support, in which case, if any of the three's superior serves as the PostFinalBoss, they'll actually side with you because the fate of the world is at stake.]]

* ImmuneToBullets: A few enemy types have total immunity to Pierce damage, which happens to be the default damage type dealt by all ranged weapons. It's annoying but manageable while fighting DemBones, but can turn into a real headache when a bunch of sigil towers is blocking the path; ''especially'' if they're death sigils. Sigils should never be attacked in melee due to how they work, and the things being invulnerable to your snipers leaves only mages
or characters using a scepter or rod capable of dealing with them. Hope you brought one along.

* MirrorCharacters: St. Waidwen himself and lovable bumpkin Edér led similar lives, right down to even sounding kind of similar [[spoiler:when you speak with Waidwen's imprisoned soul in Rymrgand's realm during ''Beast of Winter'']], but of course they diverged completely when Waidwen was chosen as Eothas' earthly avatar. Then in ''The Forgotten Sanctum'', along comes a [[FictionalDocument little book]] called ''A True and Accurate Account of [[spoiler:the [[InternalRetcon Ten]]'s]] Final Stand'':

* BittersweetEnding: The endings that aren't outright [[DownerEnding Downer Endings]] are this. How bitter or how sweet the ending is for different characters depends upon who you allied with and what quests you completed.

** Helping Maia deliver her missives and assisting the contacts with their problems means [[spoiler: they'll successfully assassinate innocent leaders so the RDC can swoop in and take over. You have to deliberatelyflub the deliveries in order to get the good endings for those areas.]]

** {{Averted|Trope}} [[spoiler:with the feuding Vailian families in Queen's Berth, where if you wait too long[[note]]a few days at most, so even sailing to another island and back can be too much[[/note]] before you initiate the peace talks, one family will break into the other's vault, making peace between them impossible to achieve.]]

** Most larger quests have MultipleEndings, often even with multiple ways to achieve each, and the obvious path is rarely the best one. Getting the GoldenEnding routinely requires performing some very specific actions at very specific points, many of which are unlikely to be discovered unless you're very thorough or consult a guide. Several quests have [[TimedMission hidden timers]] that usually result in bad endings if too much time passes before you act. How you handle sidequests also influences the game's ultimate ending, so if you're working toward a specific outcome, better read up on how to get there before you even start a new game.

* SpiritualSuccessor: With its more open world, lush and cosmopolitan hub city, [[AndZoidberg and pirates]], ''Deadfire'' is essentially the ''[[VideoGame/BaldursGateII Shadows of Amn]]'' to ''Pillars''[='=] ''VideoGame/BaldursGate''. The multi-faction pileup and murmurs of coming war, meanwhile, make it a follow-up to Obsidian's own ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''.
** Mechanically, the game moves ''away'' from this trope. The first ''Pillars of Eternity'' was explicitly a spiritual successor to the Infinity Engine games and their licensed ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' rule sets. ''Deadfire'' pulls away from this significantly after complaints about the first game, adding multiclassing and a completely reworked combat resource system based around spreading powers through an encounter rather than a whole day. It even added a turn-based mode, since isometric [=RPGs=] have mostly abandoned real time with pause in the 20 years since they released.

* TakeYourTime: As in the first game, quests won't progress in the Watcher's absence, and the only thing stopping you from sailing away to do something else is your own suspension of disbelief. Probably the most egregious example is [[spoiler:the Nāga attack on the Watershapers' Guild, where the guild can remain silent for months in-game, but no matter when you arrive, no one else has investigated before you and you're always just in time to join in the last of the fighting in the guild's basement.]]
** However, the game also often [[AvertedTrope averts]] this. Several quests have hidden timers that lock out the better endings if you put them off for too long. [[spoiler:The abovementioned Watershapers' Guild quest for instance finishes itself in the worst way if you leave the building at any time without first convincing the dragon that you want to help it. The feuding Vailian families in Queen's Berth are another example. If you wait too long[[note]]a few days at most, so even sailing to another island and back can be too much[[/note]] before you initiate the peace talks, one family will break into the other's vault, making peace between them impossible to achieve.]]

* AsteroidsMonster: [[BonusBoss Megaboss]] Hauani O Whe the Voracious Mountain is a giant BlobMonster who, like other blobs, splits into two smaller (but still gigantic) oozes when brought to zero hit points. Then those oozes split into two more... Then two more... then two ''more''... The smaller oozes are considerably weaker, but each instance has the ability to merge back with other oozes into the next size up... at full health. [[spoiler:Once you realize the merging ability can be interrupted, however, the fight becomes more of a PuzzleBoss, which is easy with a monk or two, or just a few characters with the crossbow proficiency modal.]]

** Of the four [[BonusBoss megabosses]], one is a BlobMonster the size of an average two-story house, one is a GiantSpider the size of a small parking lot, and a third is a tower-sized suit of AnimatedArmor.

* BonusBoss:
** Many of the bounty sidequests and optional islands host a single tough encounter, but the most conventional, strictly optional examples of this are probably Nemnok the Devourer [[spoiler:the overgrown imp]], Concelhaut ([[OurLichesAreDifferent again]]), and Menzzago, [[spoiler:the fampyr lord of Splintered Reef]].
** The backer-created ships also count: Myrlesfen the Truly Insane, wizard captain of the Ironclad, with a crew made up entirely of ironclad constructs (his colors, the noble duck); Captain Ond and the Purple Foxes, of the Fortune; Rafiq the Red Beard, captain of the Siren's Song; and the Heaving Harlot and her crew, the Black Isle Bastards and their captain, [[CreatorCameo Fyrgist]].
** Free updates would later include megabosses [[GiantSpider Belranga]], [[BlobMonster Hauani O Whe]], [[EvilSorcerer Auranic]] and [[AnimatedArmor Dorudugan]], extremely powerful opponents each with an island all to themselves, designed to provide a challenge for even max-level characters.
* BonusDungeon: Lots of smaller dungeons, instead of the Endless Paths megadungeon of the first game -- with ''Deadfire'', rather than adding an extra floor at each funding level, the devs added another purely optional island. Some of the larger areas include Oathbinder's Sanctum, Arkemyr's manor home in Neketaka, Drowned Barrows, and Splintered Reef, but there are plenty of nooks and crannies in the far corners of the map which house some of the [[BonusBoss toughest encounters]] in the game.

* BossSubtitles: PlayedStraight with the [[BonusBoss Megabosses]]: Belranga, the Crystal Empress, Hauani O Whe, the Voracious Mountain, Auranic, the Sigilmaster, and Dorudugan, the Helfire Colossus.

* CaptainColorbeard: Backer captain Rafiq the Red Beard, one of the BonusBoss encounters prowling the world map.

--->'''The Watcher:''' Watch out, a three-headed [[BonusBoss Nemnok]]!

* AddictionPowered: Now you too can join Zahua's path of hallucinogenic enlightenment, as Nalpazca is one of the monk subclasses available to the Watcher at character creation. Drug effects last twice as long for the Nalpazca monk and grant a bonus Wound every three seconds, but while subject to the crash effect of a given drug, they lose a a Wound every three seconds and all healing is reduced by 100%.

It's been five years since the Hollowborn Crisis ended. Since you and your companions parted ways. But a Watcher's work is never done. Eothas has returned. The god of light and rebirth was thought dead, but he now inhabits the stone titan that sat buried under your keep, Caed Nua, for millennia. Taking place in the Deadfire Isles, the game once again stars the Watcher, who must now track down the god Eothas after he destroys Caed Nua, nearly killing you in the process. To save your soul, you must track down the wayward god and demand answers -- answers which could throw mortals and the gods themselves into chaos. The Watcher's search brings them to the Deadfire Archipelago, where four factions struggle against one another for full control of the region, and legends abound of a lost city surrounded by magical storms, filled with riches for anyone capable of plundering it.

* DoesNotLikeShoes: Most Huana go barefoot or wear, at most, sandals.

* SuperOCD: [[BunnyEarsLawyer Orron]], a [[OnlyInItForTheMoney Goldpact]] [[ThePaladin Knight]], has a case of this so severe he has to make every meal perfectly symmetrical before he and his fellow knights can start eating, and [[spoiler:can be [[AcceptableTargets manipulated into giving up the berths he's already paid for]] if you so much as tell him that he's splitting up a family by keeping those berths -- "a family of SIX, so there'll be THREE of them. Won't that be ODD?" ...It works, though.]]

* PrisonDimension: The Vytmadh ([[NoPronunciationGuide pronounced]] ''VEET-mawth'', and meaning, literally, "white mouth") opens onto a nexus within the White Void which is effectively one of these. Not everyone gets so lucky as to simply reincarnate or have their soul ripped apart, apparently.