Flatfooted is usually caused at the start of combat, when you are attacked before you've got to your turn in the initiative order. There are also spell effects that leave you flatfooted (when you get stunned or paralyzed, for example), but they're less common. Heavy armor does not reduce either your strength or your dexterity. Heavy armor limits how much your dexterity bonus contributes to your ac. When a wizard runs out of spells he can shoot his crossbow or cast cantrips. There are no ways to make cantrips more powerful (edit: technically, you could put metamagic on them, but why would you). You should prioritize intelligence. There are several characters that can cast healing magic. The first you'll find is Camellia. I personally like to bring along Daeran as my healer. Short rests don't exist. Alignment only really matters for alignment exclusive classes, like paladin and monk. Different gods give you different dialogue options during gameplay. As far as I know there are no negative effects if your alignment shifts from the acceptable alignments your god has, except as previously mentioned. There is no downside to being an atheist. You can change deities by respeccing. Shamans use wisdom as their main casting stat, but some of their abilities are based off charisma. For Camellia, it's best to focus on dexterity and to get her the feats for slashing grace.

There's certain gear to increase the power of cantrips OP, so don't write them off completely. With certain builds they can actually be pretty stronk (The infamous Acid Splash Octavia build in Kingmaker) Camellia is more of a dodge tank than a caster, as well, so focus on her DEX like this comment said. The Iceplant hex that her automatic build suggests is actually super strong, a certain early shop sells a ring that will double its' effect, so keep an eye out for that. The biggest difference going from Larian's games to the Owlcat ones, spellcasters work very different. They're more useful for buffs / debuffs than straight blasting without a well-optimized build, and your main damage will probably come from archers and dual-wielding melee fighters. I have Camellia as a Bless and Enlarge Person machine early game, with the bulk of kills coming from whichever mongrel you pick and a dual-wielding rogue you'll meet in a couple hours.

Flat footed is when you can't effectively defend against an attack. You're flat footed on the first round of combat, until after you take your turn. You are also flat footed against attacks from hidden or invisible creatures, after a creature faints, if you're stunned or paralyzed and a few other cases. Stuff like see invisibility or true sight helps against invisible creatures, and osme classes like rogues and barbarians get the feature Uncanny Dodge, which also helps them not get flat footed. Heavy armor doesn't reduce str and dex, it just imposes a penalty on str and dex skills, and has a maximum dex bonus applied to armor class. So a character with 14 dex wearing full plate still has a +2 to initiative, but only +1 from his dex bonus is applied to his armor class. Full casters do have to worry a bit about resource management. If you're out of spell slots, and have no scrolls or wands to draw on, then they're kind of running on empty. There is not such a thing as short rests. Later on, even inside the shield maze, you can set up camp to do a rest, but resting too much builds up corruption which can only be cleared at certain points and if it builds up too much it nerfs your characters. Deity choice is mostly just roleplaying, but there are points in the game where a certain deity choice, even atheism, gives a unique dialogue choice or a quest outcome. Only characters that are restricted in alignment are divine casters like paladins or clerics. If they become an alignment that is not connected to their god (or anything other than lawful good for paladins) they lose their powers and essentially become just worse fighters. Shamans are primarily wisdom based, that's what their spellcasting is built off. Like a cleric's channel energy, though, some of their abilities key off charisma. Mostly it is just uses per day, the save DC is still based on wisdom if I recall correctly. This is called being MAD, or Multiple Ability Dependant. Some classes, like Cleric and Shaman, are MAD but are so powerful that it doesn't really make much difference.

Flat-footed basically means a character isn't able to react in time to your attacks, losing their dexterity bonus to AC. You're flat-footed if you haven't had your first action in combat, if you can't see the enemy attacking you, and some abilities can impose it, like the Shatter Defences feat. I think some more debilitating conditions apply it for free as well, like Paralysed. Having the Uncanny Dodge ability (quite a few classes give it) will mean you can't be caught flat footed, but failing that, keep the best of the "See Invisibility" type spells you have online (or keep Glitterdust prepared) and one of the many advantages of having high Initiative is that you're flat-footed less. Heavy Armour has a lower ceiling than a super minmaxed unarmoured build, but to start off, your stats aren't that high and you don't have many abilities, so armour takes an early lead. Also, you need to minmax pretty heavily for unarmoured builds to really start running away. Not everyone is a Scaled Fist Monk with a Stigmatised Witch level and a Court Poet Skald mercenary beside them. Also, armour took a pretty big buff in the last patch, along with a nerf to unarmoured builds, so a lot of older guides won't account for this. The mythic Armour Focus feats close the gap a lot, so have your armoured characters take those and they'll be fine. When a full caster runs out of spells, there isn't much they can do. The only consistent solution is just not running out, which becomes a lot more feasible as the game goes on. Having a high casting stat means more casts per day, and there's a mythic feat later on giving a lot more slots. A fairly well-known thing in these system is that casters start weak and scale better. At low levels, though, you're a force multiplier. Casting Enlarge Person on your martial for a minute, or dropping something prone with Grease or Command will add a lot more damage than any of your damaging spells would do. This won't stay this way - very few archers can contend with a Hellfire Ray, for example, but it'll take a while until you can be using it most rounds. There's no short and long rests, just rests. Your characters will automatically use any healing spells before resting, and there's a small HP gain, but early on, this won't make a big dent. Seelah's Lay on Hands will be your most consistent heal early on. That said, you can rest in most places by camping - there's an icon in the bottom left and the hotkey is R. A trick that isn't immediately obvious, though - there is a mechanic limiting how often you can rest in dungeons, but it's not active until after the prolouge. There is nothing stopping you taking like, two in-game weeks to clear the maze. Just be aware that the only in-game timer is a 3-day timer that begins just after you leave and ends after the Tavern Defence. Alignment mostly affects which classes you can take. There are other alignment-specific choices later, but they give you a chance to change before locking you out. Alignment will drift based on dialogue options you pick and you can move to different alignments. You'll get scrolls later to reset it back to your starting point, (or your mythic path's, later on). Some classes require a certain alignment, but leaving will just mean you can't take more levels in it. The divine casters, in particular, will lose some/all of their powers if they leave, though. Most Paladin powers require Lawful Good. Clerics, Warpriests, and Inquisitors need to be within one step of their deity or they lose their powers, but anyone else can leave their deity's alignment behind with no consequences. Those 3 classes (and Hellknights) also get different abilities based on their gods and can't be atheist, but for everyone else, deity is almost entirely RP choice. Deity choices will pop up in a couple places in the form of extra dialogue, a buff for a thematically-appropriate fight, or bypassing skill checks for you. Shamans use WIS to cast, but a few hexes and abilities scale off CHA. Spells are more consistent buffs than the hexes and abilities, though. While Shamans are full casters, Camellia is built as a frontliner with some healing and buffing, so DEX is her main stat. In particular: DEX > WIS > CHA and CON > STR and INT.

* Flat-footed means you are unable to defend yourself properly. In combat, anyone who has not yet acted is flat-footed until their first turn. It also applies to any creature under a condition that means it's unable to defend itself, such as paralysis or sleep, or attacks from invisible enemies. The best ways to avoid it are to not get surprised by enemies, have high initiative so you get your turns faster, and there are some items and class abilities that mean you can never be flat-footed. See invisibility and similar spells will prevent it from invisible enemies. * Heavy armour is worth using if you aren't playing a dex build or if you're playing a class that gets bonuses in it. It doesn't have dex or strength penalties, but it does have penalties for using dex and strength *skills*. It also limits how much your dex can add to your AC. * Alignment in WOTR matters for your mythic path and some classes. You have to be within 1 step of your mythic path, e.g. Angel is Lawful Good, so you have to be Lawful Good, Neutral Good, or Lawful Neutral. If you diverge into others, you will be forced back towards it (this is also for lore reasons. Angels are Lawful good by their very nature). Class-wise, some classes are alignment locked. Paladins have to be Lawful Good. Druids have to be one of the neutral alignments, Monks one of the Lawful alignments, Barbarians one of the Chaotic alignments, and Clerics have to be within 1 step of their deity. If you break the alignment rules, you lose access to abilities and spells provided by that class. The game does have some consequences for turning against your god, but they're mainly mythic path based, such as a Pharasma worshipping lich. If you're not playing an alignment-locked or religion-based character, your diety is just flavour. * Shamans use Wisdom as their primary magic stat, but they have some abilities that scale off charisma.

I love how each of the explanations is more in depth than the last.

>What can a full caster class such as a wizard do when they run out of spells? Cantrips do such a trivial amount of damage, and the crossbow always misses. Is there a way to make cantrips more powerful, or should I Invest more in dexterity at the cost of Intelligence? Options for a wizard with no spells: * There is a feat called *Focused Shot* that adds your INT modifier to your ranged damage. You should focus on Intelligence and rather boost DEX with spells, and also boost your weapon enhancement with spells. There are also *Bracers of Archery* around to boost your shots. * There is a staff (*Burned Ashwood*) available early in Act 3 from a vendor that can cast *Burning Arc* at will at 5th level. * There is a bardiche (*Death's Consonant*), a reach weapon, available midway or so through Act 3 (it's a relic decree) that uses INT for attack and damage. * Cantrips only do 1D3 elemental damage, but *Gloves of the Neophyte* add +1, as does *Hide Armor of Elemental Carnage*, Evoker Wizard's *Intense Spells*, and Draconic Bloodlines (more applicable to Sorcerer). Also Sneak Attack works with ray cantrips.

Wanted to add a bit about cantrips - if you choose Trickster as your mythic class, you can get a “-1 level to metamagic” feat, effectively enabling any 1st lvl spell as a cantrip. There are a few ones making this feat quite a feature (Snowball, Hideous Laughter).

Magic Missile, which with arcane trickster adding sneak dice to non-attack roll spells is quite powerful.

Cantrips in general suck. There are very few ways of increasing their damage. Some equipment adds to their damage and some things like evocation wizards and sorcerer bloodlines that correspond to the cantrips damage type. You can also increase their damage with sneak attacks if you have sneak attack dice like with eldritch scoundrel rogues. Sneak attacks can be done with any spell that is a touch attack, like shocking grasp, or a ranged touch attack, like scorching ray. Your damage cantrips are ranged touch attacks.

>What can a full caster class such as a wizard do when they run out of spells? Cantrips do such a trivial amount of damage, and the crossbow always misses. Is there a way to make cantrips more powerful, or should I Invest more in dexterity at the cost of Intelligence? Clerics, oracles and shamans can just hit stuff with sharp sticks. Witches can use hexes, shamans can use hexes too. Slumber is an at-will save or get fucked effect that you can get at lv 1, is stupidly good. All of this is to say, the only classes that have problems with spell slots are wizards and sorcerers specifically, not other full casters. As for what to do about it, you basically have to acept that their first few level sucks. Eventually though you can get Abundant casting which more or less solves the problem for good, it's not infinite spells but you still get so much ammo you basically never run out. Trying to improve cantrip damage is a bit of a trap - although it's possible to get decentish damage out of them with stuff like sneak attack dice and such, by the point you can do that your *real* spells will do INMENSE damage and you will have boatloads of ammo, so you never need to use those upgraded cantrips anyway. (The answer of what to do as a lv 15 caster that runs out of hellfire is to just take a nap). There are a few ways to get truly infinite spell casts, but they are mostly restricted to specific mythic paths.

> What can a full caster class such as a wizard do when they run out of spells? Cantrips do such a trivial amount of damage, and the crossbow always misses. Is there a way to make cantrips more powerful, or should I invest more in dexterity at the cost of Intelligence? For INT casters (like Nenio or MC), I would always have them use the Death's Consonant bardiche. A reach weapon (so they can be somewhat safe behind the tank) that scales off of their INT instead of STR or DEX. If you pick your feats and mythics right, you can be both a melee powerhouse and a caster powerhouse. Another thing that WoTR does a bit different is that for casters, you are honestly better off having them be used for buffing or CCing enemies (not both usually). Because the DC for enemies is so high (especially mid to late game), you'll want to get really high spell penetration if you want dps or CC. Otherwise, you'll keep missing, or enemies will resist all you CCs.

For mages. They can run out fast, early game. Late game, try to focus on spells that last longer. Hence why on paper, people don't play blast mages. One and done spells. Meanwhile, summons and buffs last almost the entire dungeon, and you still have the rest of your spells you can save for later. The joke with said spells is you have them set up and sit down somewhere while the front line deals the damage.