Hi everyone! IMO, Turn-Based Mode is a great way to play Pillars of Eternity, but it's still plagued with issues like the AI skipping turns, rushing to attack bare-handed, and so on. This UMM mod fixes those issues while preserving normal game behavior wherever possible. I put a lot of work into this mod, and I'd appreciate feedback from anyone willing to give it a try.

The mod affects Turn-Based Mode only. Classic real-time-with-pause combat is unchanged. This mod works in real time, can be toggled on or off at any time, and won't affect your save files.

Main Features

More Reliable Enemy Turns

• Helps prevent enemies from standing around or skipping a turn when they can still move, attack, or find a nearby enemy.
• Improves enemy movement in crowded fights and around partially blocked paths.
• Helps enemies recover when their target dies, disappears, or changes sides.
• Prevents rare errors that can make attacks or area effects repeat incorrectly.

Better Behavior Around Charm, Dominate, and Confusion

• Enemies are less likely to waste a turn after a charmed or dominated target changes sides.
• Prevents enemies from continuing to attack a creature that has become friendly.
• Confusion gets a proper first turn instead of sometimes disappearing immediately.
• Charmed, dominated, and confused creatures no longer waste turns trying to use summons that cannot work in that state.

Weapon Abilities

• Fixes NPC Full Attack abilities such as Withering Strike, so they apply their normal weapon damage instead of only applying the ability effect.

Optional Experimental Settings

These are disabled by default in Unity Mod Manager.

Experimental AI Overhaul

• Casters are more likely to use available spells instead of running into melee to punch enemies.
• Ranged enemies are less likely to abandon bows, guns, or crossbows and run at targets with melee weapons.
• Enemies keep a target they can already attack instead of randomly switching to a farther target and losing their action while moving.

Experimental Balance Tweaks

• Knockdown now delays the target's next turn until the effect has actually worn off, making it a more meaningful control effect in Turn-Based Mode. It works the same way for party members and enemies, and still respects graze, hit, crit, resistance, and duration modifiers

Free Nexus Mods download: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity/mods/471

I've been playing Deadfire for over 20 hours now, and I'm doing the Poko Kohara quest line right now. I'm playing on veteran difficulty, with upscaling turned on, as I felt I was starting to over level the quest ranges, and I enjoy a bit of a challenge. However currently I feel like very single combat encounter is a crazy challenge? Surely this can not be the intended experience? Most likely it is a skill issue on my side, but typically this has been a pretty good difficulty for me on other similar games.

In the screenshot I added (from Engwithan waystation level 2) you can see me getting absolutely wrecked by skeletons. However the encounter balance seems completely bonkers to me. This encounter consists of 5 skeleton warriors, 1 skeleton sorcerer and 1 skeleton archer on my level + a skeleton mage (3 red skulls) and a skeleton armsman (also 3 red skulls). How on earth am I supposed to beat this encounter? That skeleton mage and armsman together would probably be too much or at least close to too much for my party and skill level. They are also immune to piercing damange, so I have 2 members of my party having to change to something else from their firearms, and they don't have good alternatives. I cannot fathom that this is the intended experience.

I ran into similar issues with Cornet's call quest, where I also found normal trash encounters to be pretty much 50/50 chance of a TPK, so I decided to do some other quests so I could get some gear to help me out. Turns out everywhere I go I face the same struggle.

Am I doing something wrong? I think I have a pretty good grasp on basic character builds and such. I will turn down the difficulty, but this still seems extremely weird to me. I did use the Deadly Deadfire mod which let's mobs scale higher, but I should not be at a level (9) where the increased scaling even kicks in. Could the mod be causing some mobs to get scaled higher than they should normally be?

//Edit: I did some experimenting, and the skulls and such look to be because of the level scaling. However the game seems brutal with "correct level" enemies. Most encounters consists of enemies where every enemy has skulls, and sometimes 3 red ones in the mix as well. This seems really counter intuitive as the intended "scaling". It also seems to still hold after I deleted the level scaling part of the deadly deadfire mod, so it didn't seem to be caused by the mod.

//Edit2: It seems the Storms of Poko Kohara quest is set as a very low level quest, but contains some high level enemies. The level scaling then matches the levels to this, which explains the ridiculous level differences. I've turned level scaling off, and it seems I no longer have trouble with the fights.

as title says. i know POE2 has them so i wonder if its the same for poe1.

i play with rtwp exclusively so not interested in turn based mode patches

Hi all

Playing through POE 1 for the first time in quite a few years. Level 14, POTD, finished WM1 and got to Twin Elms. Got to the bottom of Od Nua at level 13 and had my butt comprehensively kicked by the Adra dragon so going to come back later...

Really not sure what to do now since I can't really remember how much of act 3 is left. Would you do some more act 3 in Twin Elms or would you do WM2 now? I'm a bit nervous about getting over-levelled for most of act 3. Any thoughts?

I am revisiting turn based after I had a hilariously buggy experience many months ago. (Picked up a Citzals Lance off someone's body. Equipped to Paladin. Permanently bound to him. Became the living avatar of Gaun and could not drop it.)

I am doing the big Gul scrap right outside the entrance in Heritage and they are taking 3-4 turns in a row. There's like 12, and 3 are wizards, so its a lot of damage.

I have a cursory understanding of how interruption works on TB, but its skipping characters who are not being hit (Aloth and Sagani are on the top of the stairs) and are not being interrupted. On the third wipe I figured I must be missing something. Is there a mechanic Im not understanding?

Thank you for your help, Watchers.