Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire – Engagement Guide
Engagement has evolved since the first Pillar of Eternity game. It still works the same but the ways to apply it have changed.
Engagement occurs when a target attacks an enemy in melee (and can apply Engagement, see below the conditions to apply it). If a target is engaged an arrow will be displayed in green for ally engagements or in red for enemy engagements.
Below is an example of multiple Engagements going on at once.
Here our glorious Edér is engaging two enemies: the one on the top left and the one on the bottom of the image. In the meantime, the enemy on the top right of the picture engages Edér back.
When a target is engaged if it tries to move away from the enemy engaging it will suffer an automatic attack from the target. Many spells and passives interact with Engagement such as passives to increase Deflection during Disengagement only.
On top of that some specific actions can break Engagement such as inflicting specific Affliction breaking Engagement on the enemy or by using a movement ability with Disengagement effect to move out of range for example.
The key difference with the first game is that by default characters can’t engage enemies. They need to have any effect giving them additional Engagement targets as the default number is 0. The most common way to increase the number of targets engaged is by wearing a shield as it gives +1 Engaged target. Classes allowing for melee weaponized combat tends to offer passives or abilities to increase the number of targets Engaged and even improve the effects of Engagement.