Also, I expect any balance issues should taper off as the party approaches the same level. With Reed at 9 and everyone else hovering around 5, and with my gear prioritized for Reed, things are likely to be a bit lopsided.

Whoah, whoah. Don't sweat it. I tend to scale my nitpickyness up or down depending on how good/polished a thing is, and I have been extraordinarily nitpicky with a lot of my feedback on this. Reed is a phenomenal game.

As for the beggar, if you wanted an alternate resolution to the fight that (hopefully) didn't require a lot of overhauling, you could always have him get bored and stumble off after he cycles through his dialog. Even then, that seems like it's something that could always be added in later. Repercussions from it, if you decided there should be any, seem like they wouldn't really be relevant until chapter 4.

STUFF

-Am I supposed to have a new weapon for Reed before beginning the finale? The first octopus vastly outpaces me in damage and in heals. I'm still using the claymore, my armor's leather, I've gone into 1-hand with two ranks in the passive damage boost and two ranks in the active ability. Even swimming in items, this is not nearly enough.

-Steel Shortsword, bought on the market, cannot be equipped by Reed. Or apparently by anyone. Weird.

-Using candied torchbug on the first octopus causes a NoMethodError for section033:22 in underwater_animation1_id and a prompt game crash

-I was able to surmount the first octopus by stealing Virginie's chainmail, equipping all defensive items, and then laming the fight out with healing potions. Luckily, this time the octopus did not regenerate once (instead of every other round) and I won eventually. Potion of haste was also a huge help.

-There is no real benefit for encountering the octopus. It just seems to be there to punish people who didn't have enough lockpicks farmed before starting the finale. This is a bit weird.

-Couldn't find the body of the guy who was dragged under anywhere in the flooded tunnels, although I got the bat chest and found the way to the bridge area. Is he actually down there?

-Great Cutlops was a surprising pushover. He got maybe one attack action in, grabbed Reed, surfaced, and went down in two turns of Virginie and Lingarde attacking the core.

-Second room in the fortress basement, leftmost crate, if Reed stands under it, her head vanishes into the box. Long live Tallest Torso.

-Solid end to the chapter, although I'm still not sure what the candied torchbugs are meant to do. I'm digging the plot, although I wouldn't have minded a little more sidequesting in this one. The town areas all felt both big and kind of bare, in the same way the Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim towns feel. I genuinely cared about the characters, which is a refreshing break from how I usually feel about Elder Scrolls games. The combat towards the beginning felt much more challenging than the stuff at the end, which contrasted with the amazing boss battle and epilogue at the end of chapter one. Still, this brought in a ton of new content and I definitely enjoyed it. I just felt like the chapter was more engaged with setting up a broader story arc (which is not a bad thing) and less with pulling the player along. Reed feels a bit adrift here, and I did too.

My Reed was at 10, but I'd dumped most of my point into lockpicking, and I didn't have access to any better weapons, so nerfing might not necessarily be required.

I liked the idea of splitting off being incentivized. I just don't think that saving a single lockpick does that. The octopuses could drop something though, and that would do it. This would also remove the need to rebalance them, if they were hard but avoidable. Also, maybe a prompt on the locked doors saying "hey, we could pick our way through, but I think the door is alarmed from the other side..." etc etc narrative reasons to gently nudge the player into thinking that there's a more S-rank way of going forward.

And man, that's what the torchbugs do? I would never in a million years have figured that out. I just kept murdering the prawns when they popped up for their sweet loot drop. Maybe give the torchbugs a poison effect when used on other enemies? That might make them more interesting in other combats.

I went around for every door. I also tested just going through the doors, to see if there was any difference plotwise between the two.

I did think encountering the cutlops was pretty cool, and I'll normally explore pretty thoroughly in a game, but only if I think the exploration might be incentivized. If there's items or plot or lore or any other kind of content that shows up when I go exploring, I keep doing it. If not, I stick to the main content.

@Gibmaker I have a question, how did you do the message over Virgil during his following the heroine?

Sorry for my English.

I understand. I knew it was about custom scripts. I'd be happy to create my own version of this code if you help me or direct me.

P.S. I use the XP version :)