Computer Pathfinder: Kingmaker [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

VexingFool

2018-09-25, 01:39 AM

The CRPG from Owlcat Games based on the Kingmaker Adventure Path comes out today. The game is a ‘Real Time with Pause’ isometric party-based RPG similar in style to Baldur’s Gate. The game is using the Pathfinder ruleset with some alternate rules like consolidated skills.

The game has the core classes plus Alchemist, Inquisitor and Magus. The Barbarian, Monk and Rogue are the Unchained variants. Each class has three additional archetypes to choose from. There are a few Prestige Classes: Arcane Trickster, Duelist, Dragon Disciple, Eldritch Knight, Mystic Theurge and Stalwart Defender.

It is 7 chapters long covering the 6 AP books plus a bonus chapter unlocked during the Kickstarter. Estimated completion time is 40-80 hours. In addition to the standard questing/dungeon crawling there are Kingdom and Town building mechanics. There is no character crafting instead you have Kingdom artisans you commission to craft you items.

There are 11 different companions each with side quests and roles they can play in your Kingdom. In addition you can hire custom companions but these cost gold and can’t fill any advisor roles in your Kingdom.

My current thoughts on my first builds are:
Fighter-2/Wizard-8/Eldritch Knight-10 archer character. (They do have Eldritch Archer Magus but I want 9th level spells.)
Scaled Fist Monk-17/Paladin-3
Druid-18/Barbarian-2

Really looking forward to playing this game. My only concern is that the later chapters may not be as polished as Chapter 1. Chapter 1 was extensively played in the alpha and beta tests and many bugs were discovered and fixed. Chapter 2 was available in the early beta but was not in the last beta build.

JadedDM

2018-09-25, 03:05 PM

Estimated completion time is 40-80 hours.
Guess I need to clear some time from my schedule before tackling this then. It took me 3 months to finish Pillars of Eternity 2, and it was about as long.

Renegade Paladin

2018-09-25, 08:40 PM

It feels an awful lot like CRPGs of the late 90s/early 2000s. Which isn't entirely a bad thing, but if you're looking for a flashy graphics game, this isn't it. I really like that style of game, though, so I'm having fun with it. :smallsmile:

Firechanter

2018-09-25, 08:43 PM

Tagging this thread to follow some first-hand reviews from people who actually have a clue about D&D / PF. ;)

I'm pretty sure I want the game, but I also have a long-standing policy of not spending more than 20€ on a single game. Gotta admit that I'm sorely tempted to break that rule and fork over the 30€ currently asked by at least one (legit) keyseller. Otherwise I'ma hold off a while until I can be sure they didn't botch the main parts of the campaign. ^^ Anyway!

--

Of course, we need to be aware of the fact that this game only offers a tiny, tiny fraction of the entire published PF content we are accustomed to. So your favourite builds and combos? Probably not supported. :p
As mentioned above there are only about 3 Archetypes per class, and the available ATs are often rather lackluster and not the stuff you'd likely take in a tabletop game.
Likewise, feat support varies a lot between classes (going from the Wiki list here). At first glance, Inquisitors seem to get more support than Paladins, for instance. Speaking of Paladins, two out of their 3 ATs are terrible.

Just saying, I am currently in a Kingmaker game playing a Paladin, so naturally I'm tempted to play PFKM with the same character. But it appears that the computer game only offers _one_ out of the six feats I picked up until level 9, and of course it doesn't feature my chosen AT, either. So, bummer there. Would have to use an entirely different build either way.

--

Two aspects are yet unclear to me:

1. All previews so far pretty much state that your main character is destined to be the Ruler of your nation. So, if that's true and the kingdom rules work the way they do in PF, that would pretty much mean you're screwing yourself if you don't take a CHA build. Does anyone know if you can also outsource the Ruler position to one of your companions if you want to play, say a CHA 8 Ranger, and have your Ranger be the warden or reeve or whatever instead?

2. The AP features a few scripted weapon drops, advising the GM to adjust the weapon type to "whatever your group's main melee character uses" (phrased a little differently, ofc). Again, does the game make similar provisions?

Nadevoc

2018-09-25, 08:50 PM

I backed this, since the Kingmaker AP always seemed interesting. I've definitely started to disfavor 3.5 (and by extension Pathfinder, which I've never actually played but is extremely close), but having the PC handle all the little pluses and minuses means I don't have to worry about tracking them all, so there go my big complaints with the system. Seems like there's promise for this to capture some of the magic I found in games like Baldur's Gate, which I would love.

Anyhow, I'll post more thoughts as I actually play the game. I haven't really followed it at all since backing it, preferring to let myself be surprised (hopefully pleasantly!)

Renegade Paladin

2018-09-25, 08:52 PM

2. The AP features a few scripted weapon drops, advising the GM to adjust the weapon type to "whatever your group's main melee character uses" (phrased a little differently, ofc). Again, does the game make similar provisions?

I haven't gotten past Oleg's yet, so don't know. Also, I'm going to stop about halfway through the game to let our tabletop Kingmaker campaign finish, but there are a few weapon drops I know about before I get to that point, so I can let you know.

Aotrs Commander

2018-09-25, 08:59 PM

Backed it, 'cos I like this sort of game and Golarion is by far the best campaign world I've ever read (it is the only one D&D and related has ever created that I play on willingly and not because something I running happens to be set on a place). Golarion is the only campaign world I have ever bought books for (outside of Rolemaster's for Middle-Earth) just to read the fluff. (They had me the moment they told me Golarion was in a proper solar-system with other planets and stuff.0

As I am part-way through Spellforce 3 and I haven't ever properly played through Deadfire yet, it might be a bit before I play this, though. But I won't feel too bad about it, since it'll give 'em tie to patch the inevitable bugs - I say that without rancour, there are ALWAYS bugs, much as people would like to think something could be otherwise - and they already took my money, damn it (sic).

(Also, the hype was always cautious, since I've had a couple of kickstarters keel over in the same sort of timeframe.)

I'm actually pretty well away for games at the moment, I really am.

Anteros

2018-09-25, 09:06 PM

It's getting absolutely destroyed on Steam reviews so far. I'll pick this up, but I'm going to wait until they work out some of the bugs.

Renegade Paladin

2018-09-25, 10:24 PM

Huh. Haven't run into any bugs so far, but I can see why a modern game audience would destroy it in reviews; as I said, it looks like it came straight out of 2002.

Anteros

2018-09-25, 10:28 PM

Huh. Haven't run into any bugs so far, but I can see why a modern game audience would destroy it in reviews; as I said, it looks like it came straight out of 2002.

Most if not all of the negative reviews I've seen were bug related. I think the CRPG genre is niche enough that most people who buy these games kinda expect the retro look. It's probably just a compatibility issue with certain types of hardware. Hopefully it gets sorted soon. I'm hopeful for the game and I'd hate to see its launch get derailed by technical issues.

VexingFool

2018-09-26, 12:42 AM

Played about 4hrs today and only had one crash that happened when trying to exit to main menu after playing for 2 1/2hrs. I had saved and reloaded many times during that play through with no difficulty.

Not sure what to say about complaints about the graphics. To me it looks as good as PoE2 but not quite up to DOS2. I mostly play these games zoomed out so guess I don't really notice graphics differences. The maps and terrain look great. There are definitely more character appearance options than PoE2 had when it launched. I love that everything shows on your character model. Potions appear on your belt, extra weapons on your back and bracers show up on your arms when equipped. Valerie has a magic lantern that hangs from her belt and generates light, there are lots of small details.

Gameplay has been good so far, I am still getting used to the UI quirks for this game. I need to set some different hotkeys, I was playing Wasteland 2 again last week and keep trying to use those keys for highlighting and party select.:smallannoyed: My first run through with my Archer took about 2 1/2 hrs to get through the tutorial and the 2nd fight at Oleg's. I did have to replay that fight several times as several people were dying in the fight. I am playing on a harder difficulty than default but some tactics changes were what was needed. After that fight I decided to try another character so I rolled my Scaled Fist Monk, took about 30 minutes to get through the opening sequence and make it to Oleg's. Playing on the same difficulty, the monk with Dragon Style plowed through the opening bad guys like a flaming ki fist through butter. :smallbiggrin:

So far the game is everything I expected it to be and more. For the shoestring budget these Devs had to work with I think they have delivered a heck of a game. Of course it is still early in the game and my earlier fear may still come true and the game may be a bug riddled mess after Chapter 1. Of course that didn't kill DOS2 and those developers got most of the bugs sorted out eventually. I just hope these guys are given a chance, I can't wait to see what DLC they deliver and would love to see more AP's done.

Of course, we need to be aware of the fact that this game only offers a tiny, tiny fraction of the entire published PF content we are accustomed to. So your favorite builds and combos? Probably not supported. :p
As mentioned above there are only about 3 Archetypes per class, and the available ATs are often rather lackluster and not the stuff you'd likely take in a tabletop game.
Likewise, feat support varies a lot between classes (going from the Wiki list here). At first glance, Inquisitors seem to get more support than Paladins, for instance. Speaking of Paladins, two out of their 3 ATs are terrible.

Just saying, I am currently in a Kingmaker game playing a Paladin, so naturally I'm tempted to play PFKM with the same character. But it appears that the computer game only offers _one_ out of the six feats I picked up until level 9, and of course it doesn't feature my chosen AT, either. So, bummer there. Would have to use an entirely different build either way.
There are DLC's planned that will add more to the game. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually each class got another Archetype. More races and more classes seem to be the most requested items.

I haven't had any problem planning out a character build with the current archetypes and feats. There is a lot of content there for the first game. If they can survive the review bombing happening, they have a nice core system on which to build upon. Of course this is complicated by the future of Pathfinder 2.0.

Two aspects are yet unclear to me:

1. All previews so far pretty much state that your main character is destined to be the Ruler of your nation. So, if that's true and the kingdom rules work the way they do in PF, that would pretty much mean you're screwing yourself if you don't take a CHA build. Does anyone know if you can also outsource the Ruler position to one of your companions if you want to play, say a CHA 8 Ranger, and have your Ranger be the warden or reeve or whatever instead?

2. The AP features a few scripted weapon drops, advising the GM to adjust the weapon type to "whatever your group's main melee character uses" (phrased a little differently, ofc). Again, does the game make similar provisions?
The Dev's have stated that they made changes to the Kingdom ruler mechanics so that a Charisma character is not necessary. I don't know if Charisma characters would have any advantage over characters who dump Charisma. There was a vague statement about Charisma not being the only quality of leadership or something. Early on in the game your main character is called out for their leadership skills, so I would guess it is baked into the game.

I know there was one particular weapon a Dev mentioned that was important to the campaign and I believe they said it would appear as a weapon favored by the main character. Not sure my memory is 100% on that one, doubt I can find that thread on steam again. They did state there is at least one named weapon for every weapon type in the game. So if you pick up fauchard proficiency you should not feel like you made a poor choice. It'll be interesting to see how much control you have over the artisan system.

Aotrs Commander

2018-09-26, 04:26 AM

It's getting absolutely destroyed on Steam reviews so far. I'll pick this up, but I'm going to wait until they work out some of the bugs.

*checks*

75% is "absolutely destroyed?"

It currently is sitting prettier than most of the already-released games I looked at for comparison off my own list (poor old BATTLETECH appears to have dropped to "mixed").

It may be you looked while all the people who couldn't load it or immediately rage-quit for whatever reason left their reviews and before people who were too busy playing put theirs in.

Honestly, sounds like a typical game release; doubly so for a kickstarter. War for the Oveworld was VERY rough on release (with a kickstarter especially, there comes a point you need to get it out of the door lest the project fail), and with time and patches, it is coming close to nudging DungeonKeeper aside, it is now THAT good. Hell, I have learned it's always worth giving anything Paradox release a couple of weeks after release before playing anything, because bugs.

GloatingSwine

2018-09-26, 04:40 AM

*checks*

75% is "absolutely destroyed?"

Oh god yes. Steam reviews are no more immune to the three point scale where 7/10 is the score a game gets if running the executable deletes your operating system and sprays anthrax out of the fan vents.

Consider how the public at large reacts if <insert popular anticipated title> gets a score as low as 8...

Aotrs Commander

2018-09-26, 04:55 AM

Oh god yes. Steam reviews are no more immune to the three point scale where 7/10 is the score a game gets if running the executable deletes your operating system and sprays anthrax out of the fan vents.

Consider how the public at large reacts if <insert popular anticipated title> gets a score as low as 8...

Considering the ONLY games in my library that I looked up that were higher than that was Tyranny and the aforementioned War for the Overworld - small games with niche markets...

Okay, as of this post, I checked a couple more which are higher and Cities Skylines, Tropico 4 and PS:T enhanced...

Fracking Total Warhammer 1 only ever managed the same (75%), so oh no, if it's as "bad" as Total Warhammer, it must be terrible...

(Though frankly, any idiot who doesn't bother to do actually do any kind of basic research before making a purchase in this day and age and just goes on on a single aggregate number deserves to miss having good anything. And possibly being hit by a bus, since we could use a lot less Stupid in the world.

Nor should we encourage the mode of thinking that the "three-point scale" is worthy of anything other than derision.)

Morty

2018-09-26, 04:55 AM

I have conflicted feelings. On the one hand, I am always on lookout for quality old-schoolish isometric RPGs. On the other hand, well, Pathfinder. Like others, I'm just going to wait for people's impressions before deciding. Maybe my apprehensions will prove correct, maybe they won't. Fidelity (or rather, lack thereof) to the rules and the quality of the fighter and rogue classes will be deciding factors.

GloatingSwine

2018-09-26, 05:12 AM

Considering the ONLY games in my library that I looked up that were higher than that was Tyranny and the aforementioned War for the Overworld - small games with niche markets...

Okay, as of this post, I checked a couple more which are higher and Cities Skylines, Tropico 4 and PS:T enhanced...

Fracking Total Warhammer 1 only ever managed the same (75%), so oh no, if it's as "bad" as Total Warhammer, it must be terrible...

I mean user reviews in general are useless because the main thing that motivates people to write them is having some kind of axe to grind (Like Battletech review score dropping is likely because of unpopular changes to skills in recent patches).

Also they're written by people you'll never see or hear from again, so there's no incentive for them to build a reputation as a thoughtful or introspective reviewer.

A million monkeys with a million keyboards are unlikely to produce useful reviews even in aggregate.

Aotrs Commander

2018-09-26, 06:07 AM

I mean user reviews in general are useless because the main thing that motivates people to write them is having some kind of axe to grind (Like Battletech review score dropping is likely because of unpopular changes to skills in recent patches).

Also they're written by people you'll never see or hear from again, so there's no incentive for them to build a reputation as a thoughtful or introspective reviewer.

A million monkeys with a million keyboards are unlikely to produce useful reviews even in aggregate.

Agreed,

And, at this point, looking through my last few posts in threads the last few hours aforemediation time, I'mma take a rest from posting and stuff for a bit, probably most of the day, on account of me being inexplicably more snippy and short-tempered than usual (well, maybe not entirely inexplicably, bt that's neither there nor there); even that last post was snippier than it really needed to be. *tips helmet*

Firechanter

2018-09-26, 07:58 AM

I know there was one particular weapon a Dev mentioned that was important to the campaign and I believe they said it would appear as a weapon favored by the main character.

Ah, thanks for the heads-up.
That invokes the question how the program wants to determine which weapon my Main favours, especially if I don't have weapon-specific feats. Longest time clocked in the equipment slot? Most combat rounds fought? There have been games in the past using either of those approaches and none of them worked particularly well.

dascarletm

2018-09-26, 08:59 AM

Going to roll up a sword saint magus, can't decide what weapon to focus on though.

Anteros

2018-09-26, 11:25 AM

*checks*

75% is "absolutely destroyed?"

It was sub 50% when I looked, but that was pretty close to launch time and I guess a lot of people weren't actually able to launch the game at first. It's recovering nicely now.

The Glyphstone

2018-09-26, 11:48 AM

So how well does it actually play? Are non-blaster spellcasters viable? Are the companion characters interesting?

Firechanter

2018-09-26, 11:49 AM

Going to roll up a sword saint magus, can't decide what weapon to focus on though.

Well, something with high Threat range, I suppose. So, Falchion for a Str build, or even better No-Dachi if the game has it. If it's true that the important weapon drops are adjusted to whatever you have specced into, you can't go wrong with that. ^^

dascarletm

2018-09-26, 01:07 PM

Going Dex-based. Sadly no Nodachi or Katanas. (at least in weapon prof feats)

I think the Estoc would be best for that. Wanted to do dueling sword, but the threat range is only 19-20 :(

JadedDM

2018-09-26, 05:43 PM

Also, dumb question, but this game is 1E Pathfinder, right?

Morty

2018-09-26, 05:44 PM

Sloanzilla

2018-09-26, 05:54 PM

It's fun. But I am having a bad week and didn't really want to think when I got to the statue puzzle.

Minion #6

2018-09-26, 06:12 PM

Also, dumb question, but this game is 1E Pathfinder, right?

I mean, PF2 playtest hasn't been out even 2 months yet, so...

Firechanter

2018-09-26, 06:17 PM

If Aldori duelling swords are in this game, then that's one incredibly nitpicky complainant of mine possibly averted. Although whether or not it's possible to run a good fighter with them (inasmuch as a PF fighter can be good) is another question.

Well. It certainly meshes well thematically, but other than fluff, I don't see much going for it. Sword Scion would be a nice trait (if it's even in the game, I don't know) but it works just as well with longswords. If you want to finesse, you pay 1 EWP feat for 1 point of extra damage over the rapier, and that's hardly worth it.
At least the Aldori Defender is not that terribly focused on Disarming - you basically have to invest one feat's worth into it. A dedicated Disarmer is probably not worth it in KM since most of the time you'll be fighting monsters, so Disarm feats will do squat for you.

That said, it might be a nice run if you're in for a challenge and are fed up with playing powerbuilds. ;)

Renegade Paladin

2018-09-26, 11:09 PM

Is anyone else getting to Thorn Ford and not finding the bandit camp that the quest says should be there? :smallconfused:

VexingFool

2018-09-27, 12:58 AM

That invokes the question how the program wants to determine which weapon my Main favours, especially if I don't have weapon-specific feats. Longest time clocked in the equipment slot? Most combat rounds fought? There have been games in the past using either of those approaches and none of them worked particularly well. I had the same thoughts as well. Guess I'll have to wait and see, I'm sure someone's probably already through to Chapter 2+. I haven't played the Kingmaker AP and don't own it either, so I don't know what weapon would be campaign critical.

I think the Estoc would be best for that. Wanted to do dueling sword, but the threat range is only 19-20 :(Estocs look like a good choice.

If Aldori duelling swords are in this game, then that's one incredibly nitpicky complainant of mine possibly averted. Although whether or not it's possible to run a good fighter with them (inasmuch as a PF fighter can be good) is another question.They also have the Aldori Defender archetype and the duelist prestige class.

It's fun. But I am having a bad week and didn't really want to think when I got to the statue puzzle.I was pretty tired as well and had to go old school and break out the paper and pencil to solve it.
There are two rooms. One for the swords up and one for swords down.

Is anyone else getting to Thorn Ford and not finding the bandit camp that the quest says should be there? :smallconfused:Were they at the Ford map or at a location nearby? I remember I went to the Ford and found the bandits shortly after. It might be one of those encounters that is time sensitive.
You should have found Jhod and talked to Kressel.
Second day of playing and had lots of frustrating tough fights. I don't have the difficulty turned up much, just to standard rules level, but still getting my butt handed to me in some fights. There is no level scaling in this game so I understand if I run into an occasional encounter or location I'm not ready for. But there are several quest fights that seemed a bit overtuned and I was only able to beat them using the pre-order/kickstarter items I had. The Devs have acknowledged some of this and said they are making changes for 1.02 difficulties. They are also adding a tooltip, dialog and providing items for a quest that runs into a couple of swarms.

After beating the first two fights at the Shrine of the Elk Lord and getting my butt handed to me in the third I decided to play my monk campaign. The monk continues to impress and I was able to win the major battle at Oleg's on the first try. She seems to be able to get behind enemy lines fairly easy and take down those casters and archers quick. I've tried to use Amiri for this in my first game but she always seems to get stuck in with frontliners.My first run I recruited the alchemist into the fight and perhaps his bombs were hurting me as much as helping.:smallwink:

Morty

2018-09-27, 06:16 AM

Well. It certainly meshes well thematically, but other than fluff, I don't see much going for it. Sword Scion would be a nice trait (if it's even in the game, I don't know) but it works just as well with longswords. If you want to finesse, you pay 1 EWP feat for 1 point of extra damage over the rapier, and that's hardly worth it.
At least the Aldori Defender is not that terribly focused on Disarming - you basically have to invest one feat's worth into it. A dedicated Disarmer is probably not worth it in KM since most of the time you'll be fighting monsters, so Disarm feats will do squat for you.

That said, it might be a nice run if you're in for a challenge and are fed up with playing powerbuilds. ;)

That certainly matches my experience trying to fight with finesse in 3E/PF. Still, the option is there, which is more than I expected, so I won't dismiss it just yet.

Firechanter

2018-09-27, 07:09 AM

Already, I gave in and got the game last night. Just rolled up a first test character and played a bit in the tutorial.
Apparently, Traits aren't implemented at all. So no Magical Knack, no Magical Lineage, no Fate's Favoured, no extra class skills for anyone, and of course no Sword Scion either, for that matter.

So that's taking away a lot of Oomph from almost anyone, and nullifies many tried and proven builds.

Likewise, Ready Actions don't seem to be implemented at all, and if you can control AoOs to perform Combat Maneuvers with them, I haven't found out how. Then again, I didn't get hold of a reach weapon yet.

What's also funny is that none of the preset difficulty settings _exactly_ reflect PnP rules. "Normal" makes enemies weaker, "Challenging" makes them stronger than normal. To actually have 1:1 PnP difficulty with normal enemies you have to use a Custom setting.

Another observation from a buddy of mine: he picked a Leopard as Animal Companion for his Fey Sorcerer and that cat is more powerful than a Fighter. 3 Attacks, Dex 21, Dex to Damage, and AC25 with Mage Armour. Does that remind us of anything? :smallsigh:

Rising Phoenix

2018-09-27, 06:43 PM

I am playing a druid with 8 STR. I just buff my kitten and sit back and sip tea. No in all seriousness, Why are there no slings in the game/ any ranged low level druid spells? I guess I will need to take martial weapon proficiency...That being said the level 2 druid spell poisoned briars or whatever it's called is ridiculously OP at low levels. entangle a group of mooks and pepper them from afar while they have difficulty hitting back.

And I will need to tone down the difficulty of the game, now that I know that challenging is harder than PnP difficulty.

Rynjin

2018-09-27, 07:38 PM

I've only gotten just past the tutorial so far, but I'm kind of liking it. Which is saying something; I'm not the biggest fan of isometric RPGs (the only one in recent memory I've enjoyed is Divinity Original Sin 2; the newest one before that was Neverwinter Nights 2).

I re-rolled my first ever Pathfinder character (well...first one I cared about) except as a Scaled Fist instead of Drunken Master of Many Styles and am liking it so far. Annoying that apparently a Lawful Evil character gets shafted both ways with the starting party comp (why, oh why, is there even a Tower Shield Specialist IN the game?) but friends have said the selection opens up pretty quick, so I can deal with a party of all beefy melee bois for a while. Aethal is cool at least, and Amiri of course.

Renegade Paladin

2018-09-27, 08:30 PM

Were they at the Ford map or at a location nearby? I remember I went to the Ford and found the bandits shortly after. It might be one of those encounters that is time sensitive.
You should have found Jhod and talked to Kressel.
The Ford map is empty, and I explored every road around it. I've passed through it six or seven times now going back and forth to Oleg's while exploring the map. I haven't encountered either of the people you name.

VexingFool

2018-09-28, 01:06 AM

The Ford map is empty, and I explored every road around it. I've passed through it six or seven times now going back and forth to Oleg's while exploring the map. I haven't encountered either of the people you name. Do you see the bandit platforms on the ford map? There are two of them one is in the bottom right and the other is mid left. When I did it the characters I mentioned were at the bottom right camp/platform. I think if you do not investigate the ford soon enough then the other tower is the one that is manned and one of NPC's shows up at Oleg's on his own. I'll try to go there with my monk when I play later today and take a screenshot.

According to one guide the only time sensitive issue with Thorn Ford is if you went to the Ancient Tomb in pursuit of Tartuccio. If you went to the tomb first then Akiros the Stag Lord's right hand man will not be at the camp.

Made it to level-3 and that seems to be a tipping point for difficulty in this game. Fights are going much smoother, I don't seem to miss as much and don't have expend my resources except for the big fights. Probably helps that Linzi and Octavia have precise shot now. Managed to get Valerie some Fullplate+1 but I still have her using a heavy shield until she gets to level-5 and can negate the tower shield penalty. Made a custom cleric because I did not like the stat distribution on the two companion clerics. As soon as I get more money I'll be making a replacement for Amiri, she's too squishy and I don't find story compelling enough to put up with that voice.:smallannoyed:

Anyone have any ideas on the best way to build Linzi? I know how I'm building everyone else but I am unsure what path to take her down.

One tip. If you plan on making a custom companion do it immediately after you level up. Apparently they come in at the minimum xp for your level and not at the party xp level. My custom cleric is about 1500 xp behind the rest of the party.

Had one bug today when trying to level up Linzi and Octavia, the precise shot feat was missing. It wasn't anywhere in the feat lists including the not available feats. I saved the game, exited, reloaded and then the feat showed up as a suggested feat for Linzi and available for Octavia.

Oh almost forgot. Performed a Lawful Good action and got my entire party cursed with permanent -2 CON curse. I've only been able to afford to cure it on 3 companions so far. Valerie had hers removed when she died and went into Death's door state. Still need to cure my character and Amiri, figured we were the two who could handle -2 CON.

Shepsquared

2018-09-28, 01:16 AM

What's the best feat at level 1 for a drago scale monk to take? Iron Will to cover for my dumped wis?

VexingFool

2018-09-28, 01:32 AM

What's the best feat at level 1 for a drago scale monk to take? Iron Will to cover for my dumped wis?Iron will is on my list of feats to take but the only the will saves I have run into at low level are a couple of fear saves. I plan on dipping paladin to bolster my saves. I believe I took Weapon Focus: Unarmed, Dragon Style and Dodge at first level.

Inarius

2018-09-28, 01:49 AM

Just a heads up but anyone playing should probably backup your game saves manually elsewhere. I've had two different characters disappear since the latest patch and another friend of mine has had one go poof too. It might not be patch related but it does suck to lose a character out of the blue :smallmad:

Sloanzilla

2018-09-28, 06:23 AM

Like: Well written backstories for characters, especially Valerie. Fairly challenging at times- throwing a swarm at a martial party of level 2's and giving it a 17 touch AC is a baller move. Really good job of introducing some of the stuff from future AP's into the plot early on. I enjoy the "2002" retro feel and the graphics are fine. While I'm sure some options (traits) are missing- I was impressed by the number of options introduced. I was able to exactly replicate my half orc inquisitor from pen and paper.

Dislike: I haven't had this much trouble with game mechanics since Witcher 2. I can't always tell if my characters are doing what I just told them to do. Some of the locations of different options make no sense. I'm still kinda confused by camping- I make the sleeping bags appear, then what? I wish there was a dumbed down camping option. As someone else pointed out, it's kind of strange that you have to customize the snot out of it JUST to make the rules the same as they are in pen and paper.

Firechanter

2018-09-28, 10:28 AM

Aotrs Commander

2018-09-28, 11:47 AM

Wow. Steam ratings have tanked to ~65%. That really IS terrible.
Most of the negative voices are about the balancing, i.e. many consider the game way too hard. Not just "hard" but straight out unfair, not to mention ridiculously overtuned. And not all of the complaints can be attributed to poor understanding of the PF system. Some of the negs seem to have a pretty good understanding of the tabletop rules and monster balance as far as I can tell.

So that's one side of the coin. The other, and in my eyes even worse, is that while you get spammed with hard and ultra-hard fights, none of these give any XP worth mentioning. You get XP only for quests, no matter if you have to fight 15 CR9s on the way to the goal.

So I sincerely hope that they are also gonna fix that with the Balance patch they've promised (1.02). If not, I can't see myself playing this game.

One perhaps wonders, in a moment of cynicism, of the likelihood that Owlcat took note of the scathing flak Obsidian took for Pillars 2 being "too easy" on release (I mean, I cannot imagine at all there is not some overlap in dev interests; hell, I'm not sure that I didn't back P:K because Obs mentioned it in one of their PoE2 updates) and figured they would make sure they didn't mjake the same mistake.

Just goes to show, you literally cannot win, whatever you do these days...!

(My modern policy of "you know what? Give it a good month after release for them to do the inevitable fixes" depressinly rings true...)

But hey, one hotfix out and another planned for tomorrow, so you can't complaint they aren't, at least, making a solid effort to try and fix it expediently.

thrdeye

2018-09-28, 11:49 AM

Serafina

2018-09-28, 09:03 PM

You rest by putting down the camp, then clicking on the campfire in the middle of it. Which isn't always very prominent, so it's very easy to miss.
And that extra click is basically completely unnecessary, design-wise. It could have just been a checkbox with "do you want to rest" when you put down the camp, if you click "no" you instead don't put it down, if you click "yes" you do. But hey, that's hardly the only badly designed thing in this game.

Which brings us to the difficulty.
After the tutorial/prologue, you get your first fetch/sidequest. Got to this cave, get some yummy berries for a potion maker. You have to fight four spiders swarms to do this.
It's important to note that none of your NPC-companions has any AOE damage spells at this point, and that you have received no scrolls with them as loot either. Nor do you get alchemists fire - you can buy it from the potion maker, but the game doesn't tell you at all. I honestly have no idea how someone who isn't familiar with Pathfinder - thus knowing that swarms can only be fought with area damage - is supposed to figure this out.
But even if you do know it, as I did - I died over half a dozen times in there, and when I finished the fight my party were all nearly-dead (some would have been dead, if not for my difficulty setting preventing death unless they receive massive damage). And I had used ~200 gp or so worth of Alchemists Fire, plus some Acid Flasks, and everyone was so strength-drained that I'd have required four days of rest to recover. I found no way to improve upon this with my character (an Archeologist Bard)

Now if the game was beginner friendly, then the potion maker or someone else would have told you about the danger of swarms. And they would have handed you some free alchemists fire. And instead of four swarms, there'd maybe be one or two, so that it'd be manageable. The player would be told what to do, would feel like they'd have learned something, and wouldn't have to sink more money into the quest than they get out of it.

Now, does that ruin the game? So far it hasn't. I'm loathe to think how it feels for someone who has little to no idea about the Pathfinder systems and runs into this sort of stuff, but I can deal with that sort of unfair stuff. It doesn't feel properly challenging - often, the stuff you have to figure out is just the exact right timing for everything, or kiting an enemy somewhere or such, which is less "I am using clever combat tactics" and more "I am exploiting game mechanics", but hey, sometimes you do have moments where it does feel good when you win a fight you're sure could have been hard for someone else.

Do keep in mind that I'm playing with enemy stats unadjusted - harder difficulties flat-out give enemies extra AC, saves, DCs and to-hit, which basically makes everything way worse.

Renegade Paladin

2018-09-28, 10:51 PM

To be scrupulously fair, one of the loading screen tips that the game shows you flat out tells you to use AoE and splash weapons to fight swarms.

VexingFool

2018-09-28, 11:19 PM

I'm still kinda confused by camping- I make the sleeping bags appear, then what? I wish there was a dumbed down camping option. As someone else pointed out, it's kind of strange that you have to customize the snot out of it JUST to make the rules the same as they are in pen and paper. As Serafina said click on the camp once you have placed it. You can also camp from the overland travel screen, this will bring up the camp interface immediately but will have no party banter/animations. Once you have the camp interface activated click manage and then drag the party members to the roles you want them in. Check the box if you want to use your carried rations. If you leave it unchecked or are out of rations your hunters will hunt until you have enough food/rations which takes more time.

It's important to note that none of your NPC-companions has any AOE damage spells at this point, and that you have received no scrolls with them as loot either. Nor do you get alchemists fire - you can buy it from the potion maker, but the game doesn't tell you at all.You are given 2 'everburning' torches in your inventory to start the game, these can do 1 point of damage to the swarms. There are 2 vials of alchemist fire and 2 vials of acid that can be looted in the prologue. But the Devs have heard the complaints and patch 1.02 is set to address this issue.

Fangberry quest is very hard on low level.
Resolution: Bokken warns about quest difficulty and gives 6 flasks of Alchemist's Fire. The special tutorial message is added about dealing with spider swarm.

Serafina

2018-09-29, 03:39 AM

Okay, to be fair I forgot about the torches, that might have made things easier! But still really brutal, and basically-hopeless without the Alchemists Fire.

Firechanter

2018-09-29, 03:45 AM

If the swarms have something like 30hp each, good luck with your two 1dmg torches. :p
I think we can agree that swarms have always sucked, especially at low level. Paizo already did a terrible job balancing them, and now apparently Owlcat has made them even worse.

One of the first things, nay, _the_ first thing I buy for my tabletop characters when playing an AP is a Swarmbane Clasp. That one's probably not featured in the computer game though.

On another note, I've read multiple times that so-called "unnadjusted" stats are a good deal uptuned from the PF versions already. Will have to see for that myself.

--

As I see it, the harder difficulties (Normal and up) are probably pretty much impossible to play with the premade companions. Boy are those some heavily crippled gimps. -.- And you can't even remove that idiotic giant sword from Amiri - but you can remove Amiri. :p Anyway, apparently the premades are only suitable for Story Mode, or Easy Mode at best.
What's more, my buddy found out last night that after the first couple of DIY-companions, the recruiting fee increases from 2K to 8K. Maybe it's level dependent.

According to the patch notes 1.0.2,
"Some monsters in random encounters gave an incorrect amount of experience. Resolution: fixed."
so maybe my major gripe is resolved.
Now I just hope the patch file can be downloaded separately for non-steam users; I am absolutely not inclined to re-dl those 22GB from scratch with my connection.

Narkis

2018-09-29, 04:18 AM

I'm just a bit ahead of the tutorial and it's way more fun than I expected. Can't believe how much I've missed a proper DnD game.

Now if the game was beginner friendly, then the potion maker or someone else would have told you about the danger of swarms. And they would have handed you some free alchemists fire.

I assume you played yesterday? From the latest patchnotes:
"Bokken will properly warn the player about the swarms in the cave and provide them with several flask of Alchemist's Fire. In addition, the tutorial about swarms and how to deal with them will be shown when entering the cave."

VexingFool

2018-09-29, 04:38 AM

Valerie and Amiri managed with only the two torches. Linzi and my character lobbed the 2 alchemist fires we had and one of the acid flasks. The targetting was a little wonky, if I tried to not hit friendlies it did not look like the swarms would be in the AoE. I did try an acid splash from my character at the end and that did seem to affect the swarm. It did take me 2 tries but I think Amiri took more damage from picking the fangberries (she failed her check 4 times).

Yeah in Rise of the Runelords there's a swarm near Foxglove manor. The players were around level-5 and had no difficulty. In Carrion Crown there's a swarm near Harrowstone and it nearly wiped us at level-2.

Just FYI, while 1.02 adds in a some balance fixes it does not resolve an issue with 1.01 and hiring companions. Glad I got the GOG version and manually download the install files. I'll grab the patches and wait til I get the hirelings I want before updating.

Aotrs Commander

2018-09-29, 04:51 AM

Swarms can be very nasty, especially if they are of the "immune to weapons" as opposed to the "half-damage" size. I last used a couple in Shackled City against my, what, seven level 7-8 PCs... And they basically couldn't touch 'em. (Serves 'em a little bit right for having no-one capable of using good old Fireball. (They have two arcivists, one conjurer (banned evocation and abjuration), one cleric/bard, one marksman (UT) and one crusader - none of which have much in the way of ability to cause area damage (Black Tentacle don't work on swarms, nor does most of the other spells the conjurer has, and the archivists don't have too many options at that level, either, even if they weren't more healing-slash-rangedtouch based...)) They never killed 'em in the end (they'd have had to go back and rest up with every area-spell they could scrape up), but managed to lock 'em out of harm's way...!

Anteros

2018-09-29, 06:18 AM

Just goes to show, you literally cannot win, whatever you do these days...!

Well, lots of games are praised for handling difficulty correctly, so I don't think that's entirely accurate. It's certainly true that people will always complain, but when it's a majority I tend to take notice.

Firechanter

2018-09-29, 06:26 AM

OT: my worst experience with Swarms has been in the Skulls & Shackles campaign. On level 2 you are dumped on an island infested with undead, disease-ridden insects and other nasties. The only imaginable resting place is in an abandoned fort, and until you get there you'll already be pretty drained. And _then_ it turns out that inside the fort, there's a swarm of mosquitoes lurking. And not just any mosquitoes. Those must be abyssal demonmosquitoes from hell on steroids. Of course they are immune to weapon damage, also they cause bleed (from mosquito stings!), transmit a crippling disease, and while you at level 2 CANNOT have any AoE spells in your party, the gnats have more HP than a level 3 character so good luck trying to burn them with torches. Also, the entire adventure so far does not seed any items that might help you, and doesn't offer any opportunity to go shopping.
But that's not all!
The real killer is that, while real-world mosquitoes have a speed of maybe 2km/h, these insane murder-mosquitoes fly at FORTY! feet, whereas you of course are on foot and hampered by difficult terrain, so you can't even run from them! And even if you could run, you couldn't hide, so it almost doesn't matter at that point.

When we played that and realized how ****ty that swarm and the entire encounter were written, our GM handwaved it and allowed the gunslinger to burn them with powder. Strictly by the rules, it would have been game over for us then and there.

So, long story short, Paizo has a terribly flawed idea of what swarms can do and, especially, how fast they move.

Which again takes me back to topic, specifically the complaint that you cannot, ever, run from a fight. I mean, seriously?
The entire POINT of a sandbox campaign is that, while it's entirely possible that you run into encounters above your paygrade, you need to learn to pick your battles and flee when necessary.

Crustypeanut

2018-09-29, 10:24 AM

Hihoooo! I just want to throw my two cents about this game. I've noticed the bad reviews as i've been watching the reddit and steam discussion.. but I gotta say, this game is FANTASTIC. Not worth the 65% on steam it has AT ALL.

However, that being said, I'm a bit biased as I know the pathfinder rules in and out - a lot of people don't. This game doesn't explain a lot of the mechanics very well.. so most of those people are kinda screwed, thus the bad reviews. There are also some difficulty issues (like the damn treant bear) that don't make a ton of sense, but.. this game is definitely harder than PoE/PoE2.

I'm at 55 hours played right now (suffered quite a bit of restart-itus at first, then got to level 5, then restarted as I ****ed up numerous builds and they don't have a retrain feature). My current character group is almost level 6 now and holy **** am I having fun. Like.. the most fun I've had in a game IN AGES. PoE/PoE2 was bland as **** compared to this game. My only complaint is I want to strangle my halfling bard.

Well no thats a lie, thats only one of my complaints.. there are a few key features in PF and in Crpgs in general that really do need being added. Retraining (gold/time cost of course, not free), a way to retreat from battles (because you CANNOT retreat right now, making ironman mode suicidal when going in blind), and a way to dismiss spells. When you accidentally web your -8 dexterity cleric with a whole +1 to reflex in a Web spell cast by your 22 Int wizard with a DC of 18 Reflex.. it gets.. ...sticky.

Anyhoo.. if you don't have this game yet and are on the fence, I'd probably say wait a little bit, as Owlcat is working on fixes (two hotfixes in 4 days!), but keep an eye on it as its a fun game. Or, if you're willing to learn the rules, play on a lower setting, and take your time.. get it. If you take the time to learn it, its an amazing game.

Sloanzilla

2018-09-29, 12:47 PM

The mechanics are growing on me, but there's still some hybrid between turn based and not turn based that I'm having trouble with.

We roll for init, but when I tell someone to do something they seem to do it. Is there any way to see where we are in the round (in other words, it is time for me to click on character X again and order him or her to do something new?). Right now, I'm giving instructions right after I see people do stuff- I have AI disabled.

Firechanter

2018-09-29, 01:56 PM

If I am interpreting the HUD right, every creature has a timer over their head that counts down to their next action in x.x format. So the game seems to take the 6 second combat round and then distribute the initiative counts into that time frame. So if you make your character attack an enemy, you can tell by their timers who will get to attack first.

Rynjin

2018-09-29, 02:47 PM

Serafina

2018-09-29, 03:14 PM

Yes but none of your party members get them, because they're a Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Fighter, and Inquisitor. (There's also a Magus and a Wizard, but you get those later)
There's exactly one spell available to you from your party that does area damage: Fire Belly. A casting of which will give you two uses of a 1D4 15-foot cone, and you'll have three castings of it at most.

Aotrs Commander

2018-09-29, 03:38 PM

Eh? No rogue? Can the companions multiclass (I assume not)? (Actually, good question, can YOU multiclass with either you or the mercenaries or whatnot you can get?) And how cripplingly bad is it not having a trap-detector? (One presumes you can get, I dunno, the bard to do open lock, if that's even a thing.)

How many character in the party is it, by the by? PF tabletop is four (I always have to massively amp up the adenture paths because I have typically 6-8 characters!), but they may have pused it up, I suppose. (Six would be favourite, but...)

Renegade Paladin

2018-09-29, 03:58 PM

My God, the Stag Lord's fort is a pain in the rear. Walking up and challenging him is a non-starter, as is teaming up with Kress's bandits to do the same thing; it winds up with you surrounded and swiftly killed. Bluffing your way in is basically the only way, and if your fight with the gate guards when they recognize you attracts the attention of the alchemist over to the right of the gate, he'll do an unsustainable amount of damage with his bombs, which engaging him in melee doesn't stop.

I've managed to kill the Stag Lord once by means of engaging groups of bandits one at a time and working my way around to the side of the building where the ramp to his platform is before initiating combat with him, and the rest of the bandits simply converged and finished off the party after he was dead. Even with Tristian and myself playing a paladin, there is simply not enough healing to sustain the party. I'm thinking the way to do it must involve the owlbear, but calming and releasing it simply causes it to walk out without doing anything, and choosing the option that says it will help you just leaves it in the cage.

Firechanter

2018-09-29, 03:59 PM

You don't really need a Rogue.
1, in PF "Trapfinding" is just a bonus, not a class-gated feature. Your Bard can at least handle the traps in the Prologue.
2, ofc I don't know what the Devs did in the computer game, but in the AP, traps are an extremely rare sight, and those that are there aren't terribly dangerous.

However,
3, if you have set levelup to manual, you have full control over everyone in your party, and can multiclass freely. Not sure if it would make sense for any of those gimps, though. Your best option is probably to switch them out against à la carte buddies even if it sets you back a few thousand gold.

IIRC you can have up to 6 characters in the party, and every slot you leave empty means more XP for everyone.

Renegade Paladin

2018-09-29, 04:02 PM

IIRC you can have up to 6 characters in the party, and every slot you leave empty means more XP for everyone.
I'm not sure that second part's true. I have seven people currently following me (though I need to ditch Regongar sooner or later) and the one that gets left at Oleg's gains levels, so I assume he's leeching XP even while not along with the group.

Firechanter

2018-09-29, 04:09 PM

Oh, that is a game setting you can adjust. "Only currently active characters gain XP" or something.

Renegade Paladin

2018-09-29, 04:41 PM

Has anyone been able to get past the Stag Lord's fort, and if so how? I've taken to spamming Daze from my casters to try to prevent people from running to the alarm bell, but it seems that the last archer in the group over by the owlbear will reach it regardless; the distance is short enough that there's not enough time once he decides to break for it. If there's a way to make the owlbear attack, I have yet to find it.

Also, pursuant to an earlier conversation, Akiros Insmort is indeed at Thorn Ford once I found the second bandit camp down in the corner (those are some really incompetent bandits to not notice and attack people walking down the road in broad daylight), but even though he isn't marked hostile there he won't talk to me, and he's at the Stag Lord fight no matter how fast I go for it after seeing him at Thorn Ford. :smalltongue:

Driderman

2018-09-29, 04:54 PM

if you have set levelup to manual, you have full control over everyone in your party, and can multiclass freely. Not sure if it would make sense for any of those gimps, though. Your best option is probably to switch them out against à la carte buddies even if it sets you back a few thousand gold.

I'm having a fine time with the pre-made NPCs but then again, I'm playing on a hybrid easy-mode. Tougher than easy, but not so hard as to cause me any undue stress. I'm here for the power fantasy and the story. Which is great, by the way.

At least 3 of the premade companions are good fits for multiclassing. Valerie is pretty much built for Stalwart Defender from the beginning, she basically just needs to hit BAB +7, Octavia is already sort-of specced into Arcane Trickster build, Regongar seems like a shoe-in for going Dragon Disciple. I also saw someone making a case for making Tristian a Mystic Theurge but I can barely be bothered to memorize spells for my own Paladin so that's is definitely not a path I'm going down. I like Harrim better anyway.

I gotta say, despite balancing issues, annoying load times and layers of load screens once you get kingdom management, this is a great game. I'm looking forward to doing an evil playthrough, seems like there's a plenty of options for that.

Serafina

2018-09-29, 05:17 PM

You can get a Rogue/Wizard as a party member. One level of Rogue is plenty - just keep investing into Trickery, and you're good for disarming traps anyway.
If you want to optimize her, don't take more levels of Rogue, but instead take the Accomplished Sneak Attacker feat at 3rd level, and then take Wizard-levels and rank up Knowledge (Arcane) and Mobility, until you can take levels in Arcane Trickster (at 5th level). That way, you get almost-full Wizard casting, but still plenty of sneak attack which she can use with cantrips and the like if you manage to flat-foot enemies.

As for the Stag King fight:
Get his second in command on your side, that really helps.
You don't have to fight the bandits near the gate, you can avoid those.
Take care of the owlbear one way or another, you can't get it on your side, but not having it in the fight is important.
I think you can also take care of his two lieutenants (who come from the east), but I didn't and managed the fight without them, being level 4 at the time.

The important part is to avoid getting flanked by all the bandits, since that does a lot of damage. I suggest taking care of the cleric first, which is reasonably doable, and letting the bandits fight your allies. Then mop them up with your own flanking. Again, don't get swarmed yourself. Also, have potions because you'll take damage and they're only a move action to drink.

I really suggest turning off death for this fight, since that way you can go down and let your allies mop up the fight as long as you have one last member standing.

Renegade Paladin

2018-09-29, 05:32 PM

Driderman

2018-09-29, 05:56 PM

How does one get Akiros on one's side? I know it should be doable, since we did it in the tabletop AP (and wound up redeeming his paladinhood eventually), but I haven't been able to figure it out since he won't talk to me at Thorn Ford and is immediately hostile when the fight with the Stag Lord starts.

You should be able to talk to him at Thorn Ford, and if you get into the Stag Lord's fort through the western part (there's a mobility or athletics check, might trigger the alarm if you get spotted) you'll meet him there and can convince him to join you. I'm guessing you need to succeed at interpersonal skills at both occasions, I know I did, but maybe the one at the fort is enough.
Also, with nature you CAN get the owlbear to join your side, just make it understand you're not the enemy and it'll rip through the enemies when the battle starts. In my game technically the Owlbear should be Baron :smallcool:

The Glyphstone

2018-09-29, 06:53 PM

Are there story-related reasons to use the pre-generated companions? Side quests, voiced dialogue, that sort of thing?

Firechanter

2018-09-29, 08:24 PM

Are there story-related reasons to use the pre-generated companions? Side quests, voiced dialogue, that sort of thing?

Exactly those, and pretty much only these reasons. They have a full voiceset, banter, the Bard will spin a Limerick about the Paladin-school dropout, et cetera. And I hear each of them has sidequests, however these may be doable without having them in the party.

So far, all of the premade companions have serious issues (in order of appearance):

- Linzi: Halfling Bard with Str 8. Will be encumbered by pretty much anything heavier than Leather so her AC will be rubbish. Useless even in Ranged combat, never mind Melee. However, of all the troupe she is the most likeable so I might in fact just keep her. AND she can't die - whenever she would croak, her ring teleports her back to base instead.

- Amiri: Actually might be salvageable. The oversized Bastard Sword is partially mitigated by it being a +1 weapon right off the bat, when most of your party won't even have Masterwork. She's pretty squishy but you can mitigate that with Guarded Stance a bit. (I wouldn't bother picking the other stances -- one won't stack with Inspire Courage, the other tanks her AC even further.) Her biggest downside is actually her low low Str score -- just 16, come on!

- Jaethal: yay, an Undead that can't be healed by the other companions and can't heal you. Well, I don't want Evils in my party anyway so I say on your bike!

- Harrim: actually not that terrible. At least he has Wis 18. Not very good on the offense but hey, he's a Cleric! His biggest weakness is the poor choice of domains. Shame!

- Valerie: the gimpest. As if Tower Shield Spec wasn't bad enough, she only has 14 Str. If you keep her, at least do yourself a favour and give her a Heavy Shield until level 5. Personally, when I realized how much she sucks in a fight I went back to the Prologue and made my Paladin give a Chaotic response so I could get the Cleric instead.

Those are the ones you can pick up in the prologue. Then later on there's the aforementioned Rogue/Wizard, which probably even works in the long run, but in the low levels it's just a toothache to suffer the delayed spell progression. I didn't have a look at any other companions yet.

--

OT re Akiros: in the AP, he pretty much immediately joins your side if only you speak to him, iirc no check necessary. However, we knew that we should talk to him from another bandit we had redeemed earlier. Akiros is another example of a terribly gimped build, by the way. ;) In our game, I had him retrain all his levels into Cavalier (and made him General).

P.S.: I've discovered another rules oversight. The game doesn't allow you to equip a bastard sword as two-handed martial weapon.

The Glyphstone

2018-09-29, 08:50 PM

So you can customize/rebuild your companions to some degree? Or will that have to wait for mod/third-party addon support, if any?

Aotrs Commander

2018-09-29, 09:20 PM

So you can customize/rebuild your companions to some degree? Or will that have to wait for mod/third-party addon support, if any?

Well, Firechanter said upthread you can switch it to full level control, so it sounds like it (heck, that's arguably more than we got in PoE 1 & 2)... Stat-tweaking sounds like it might be mod (or live with), though.

Doesn't sound like there is any kind of respec option, though.

Driderman

2018-09-30, 02:40 AM

You can level your companions up yourself but the game has no respec. And yes, all companions have voice-acting, banter and quests, although I think some of it is bugged out or there is a looong time between some developments.

I disagree with a fair amount of Firechanter's points about the companions but as I've mentioned previously I don't play on masochistic difficulty levels and this game does have some issues with balancing, so maybe we're just using different rulesets.

- Linzi: Halfling Bard with Str 8. Will be encumbered by pretty much anything heavier than Leather so her AC will be rubbish. Useless even in Ranged combat, never mind Melee. However, of all the troupe she is the most likeable so I might in fact just keep her. AND she can't die - whenever she would croak, her ring teleports her back to base instead.

She's a bard, she's supposed to wear leather armor. Or a chainshirt I guess, but you don't really want armor check penalty on your skillmonkey. With her decent dex score she's a fairly competent backup archer(well, crossbower), along with support capabilities. Probably not something you'd want to multi-class though, seems that the Bard class benefits a lot more from a singular focus

- Amiri: Actually might be salvageable. The oversized Bastard Sword is partially mitigated by it being a +1 weapon right off the bat, when most of your party won't even have Masterwork. She's pretty squishy but you can mitigate that with Guarded Stance a bit. (I wouldn't bother picking the other stances -- one won't stack with Inspire Courage, the other tanks her AC even further.) Her biggest downside is actually her low low Str score -- just 16, come on!

She IS rather squishy, isn't she? Still, useful enough in the early game but I wasn't too impressed either. Not much of a fan of glass cannons unless it's my own character, can't be bothered to micromanage the entire party. She's fun though :)
I suspect much of her squishiness comes from imbalanced stats on enemies, once I tweaked my ruleset she was a lot more durable

- Jaethal: yay, an Undead that can't be healed by the other companions and can't heal you. Well, I don't want Evils in my party anyway so I say on your bike!

Maybe I'm misremembering but I'm pretty sure I saw Cure Light Wounds in her spell list, like any other divine caster. She can cure you plenty, but she doesn't START with it as an option. She can cure herself with Inflict Light Wounds, though. Also, Undead has plenty of good features as well, and teamwork feats from Inquisitor so she's definitely going in my evil party (but my Paladin kicked her out obviously)

- Valerie: the gimpest. As if Tower Shield Spec wasn't bad enough, she only has 14 Str. If you keep her, at least do yourself a favour and give her a Heavy Shield until level 5. Personally, when I realized how much she sucks in a fight I went back to the Prologue and made my Paladin give a Chaotic response so I could get the Cleric instead.

Excellent tank, with proper position she can contain a battle all by herself. Not much of a damage-dealer but she lasts forever on the battlefield. Guess her usefulness depends on party composition (duh), shes' a nice complement to my STR-based 2-hander Paladin, together they form a wall of steel to give even the mightiest of enemies pause!

- Harrim: actually not that terrible. At least he has Wis 18. Not very good on the offense but hey, he's a Cleric! His biggest weakness is the poor choice of domains. Shame!
I agree that he's not that terrible. He's pretty much the basic cleric concept: "Sword" & board + support, decent melee presence. Nothing new here since 1974. Funny character though.

Now, if you'll excuse me I have a Barony to run :smallcool:

Firechanter

2018-09-30, 06:43 AM

Currently pondering which custom companions I should shoot for. As of yet I don't have any ranged build in the party so that might be an option. BTW, apparently the game gives you x1,5 Str with a Composite Longbow. So there's a potential alternative to using Deadly Aim; will have to ponder that.
(Once I played a PF Slayer with Deadly Aim and the damage output at level 6 was pretty ludicrous. Well, I loved it but the GM didn't.)

A Wizard would also be good to have. And/or a Druid. Or a Monster Tactician. So many possibilities. :smallbiggrin:

Rynjin

2018-09-30, 11:55 AM

Renegade Paladin

2018-09-30, 11:56 AM

Okay, I finally got the Stag Lord without dying to all his minions.

More accurately, I should say Akiros got the Stag Lord while I was desperately trying to stay alive in the courtyard. :smallamused: So I'm running a barony now, and the interface for it seems pretty good, though I'm vexed that apparently none of my companions are suitable treasurers, and that my choices for general are chaotic neutral, chaotic evil, and the envoy from Restov.

Firechanter

2018-09-30, 12:44 PM

Oh, can you please elaborate a bit on Leader positions?
- Does your main's build / class / stat distribution make a difference?
- what qualifies an NPC for a certain position?
In the AP every post is tied to two abilities, e.g. General = STR or CHA; Treasurer = INT or WIS, etc. Same here?
- can you put a "mercenary" (i.e. self-made companion) into a leadership position?

Driderman

2018-09-30, 02:20 PM

Oh, can you please elaborate a bit on Leader positions?

- Does your main's build / class / stat distribution make a difference?

Not as far as I know. Alignment dictates Barony alignment but I think that's it.

- what qualifies an NPC for a certain position?
In the AP every post is tied to two abilities, e.g. General = STR or CHA; Treasurer = INT or WIS, etc. Same here?

Hard to say for sure, it mostly seems logical but I was rather confused Valerie is not eligible for being General, for example.

- can you put a "mercenary" (i.e. self-made companion) into a leadership position?

I haven't tried but I've read that the answer is no

Firechanter

2018-09-30, 05:05 PM

Thanks for the heads-up. ^^

Installed Patch 1.0.3 today. I play on Normal for the time being; originally I wanted to play tabletop rules but after all, you can't do everything you can do in the tabletop so I think I can cut myself some slack there. Anyway, the fix apparently worked because now Bokken warned me of the spider swarms and gave me a half-dozen Alcfires to deal with them.
I'm now exploring the countryside. Did a bit of talking and a bit of fighting. Had to RTB mostly to get rid of excess weight. En route I found a Man-Eating Troll, but the fight was surprisingly easy, even though my party was levels 3 - 2 - 2 - 2. After Harrim cast Bless, my Paladin Smote Evil and went toe to toe with the monster, while Amiri ran moved into Flanking position, and we both pummeled it with our two-handers. Linzi inspired and Harrim lent spiritual assistance. xD The Troll went down pretty quickly, and we finished it off with a flask of Alchemist Fire.

I can see how players without tabletop experience might be in over their heads here. Firstly they might not know about Flanking, and more importantly I don't recall seeing any ingame information that trolls keep regenerating until you finish them off with fire or acid. So of course without that knowledge you can keep pummeling the monster till the cows come home.

Anyway, now I'm in a bit of a catch-22. If I sell the magic longsword I found, I can just afford to hire a Mercenary. The question is, what do I want? ^^
Currently my shortlist is:
- Archer (probably Ranger) - since I don't have any useful Ranged capabilities so far (and the one Ranged companion doesn't become available before Chapter 2);
- Wizard (and if so, what Spec?) - to do everything Wizards do
- Druid - have fun with OP animal companions _and_ 9-level spellcasting. Also, a class that no premade companion offers.
- Monster Tactician - summoning monsters for minutes/level seems pretty stronk. :o

Serafina

2018-09-30, 06:15 PM

Jaethal, the Inquisitor, can actually make a fairly good archer if you build her for it:
- she has good enough Dexterity to make it work, while having good Strength for Composite Longbows
- it negates her main weakness, needing extra healing resources
- Inquisitors get plenty of martial support both from spells and class features
So really you just need to give her the right feats - Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot etc. - to turn her into a fairly good archer. And as a bonus, she'll remain a good switch-hitter thanks to her good strength, medium armor and shield proficiency.

Driderman

2018-09-30, 06:43 PM

Anyway, now I'm in a bit of a catch-22. If I sell the magic longsword I found, I can just afford to hire a Mercenary. The question is, what do I want? ^^
Currently my shortlist is:
- Archer (probably Ranger) - since I don't have any useful Ranged capabilities so far (and the one Ranged companion doesn't become available before Chapter 2);
- Wizard (and if so, what Spec?) - to do everything Wizards do
- Druid - have fun with OP animal companions _and_ 9-level spellcasting. Also, a class that no premade companion offers.
- Monster Tactician - summoning monsters for minutes/level seems pretty stronk. :o

I'd probably go for an archer, and add some rogue levels to that since Sneak Attack is basically free with the way flanking works right now.
Summoners are also nice, for the reasons you mentioned.
Unless you don't want to bring along Octavia, or you REALLY want to optimize, no need for a wizard I'd say.

As a a complete aside, I just realised what that strange creature in my dream last night was: It was an Owlcat!

Inarius

2018-09-30, 07:53 PM

Anyway, now I'm in a bit of a catch-22. If I sell the magic longsword I found, I can just afford to hire a Mercenary. The question is, what do I want? ^^
Currently my shortlist is:
- Archer (probably Ranger) - since I don't have any useful Ranged capabilities so far (and the one Ranged companion doesn't become available before Chapter 2);
- Wizard (and if so, what Spec?) - to do everything Wizards do
- Druid - have fun with OP animal companions _and_ 9-level spellcasting. Also, a class that no premade companion offers.
- Monster Tactician - summoning monsters for minutes/level seems pretty stronk. :o

I'd say skip the wizard since casters are pretty dang weak in the early game, if you want one wait until level 5 or 6 to recruit one. A rogue is a solid choice because right now sneak attack is way too good due to the the flanking rules being incredibly lax, and with the right setup you can make a rogue have 22 ac at level 2 which is more than enough to act as an offtank. If you want ranged damage to disrupt the enemy backline then go with an archer, maybe with a splash of rogue to get some bonus sneak attack damage. I haven't personally tried a summoner type, but I've heard druids animal companions are quite beastly :smallbiggrin: in the early game at least.

Renegade Paladin

2018-09-30, 09:11 PM

So apparently you can't pull advisors off of assignments to deal with urgent problems. I had a cult spring up that I had to address within three days of the warning, the only advisors it allowed me to send to deal with it were Jhod and Tristian, and they were both tied up doing other things. :smallsigh: So now I apparently have a permanent decadent cult presence in the barony that I cannot in any way deal with.

Sloanzilla

2018-10-01, 08:35 AM

I keep getting yelled at for doing one quest instead of the other (Temple of the Elk over the Mite stuff). Does postponing the mite/kobold thing really hurt you?

Also, I guess I know the answer, but why does a shift from pen and paper to a video game mean you have to kill 10 bears for 18 experience instead of 1 bear for 180 experience? I suppose because a fight that might take an hour at a table would be over in 20 seconds on a game, but the large numbers do seem strange at times.

Rising Phoenix

2018-10-01, 08:45 AM

I've made into act 3...and gods the stat inflation is terrible in this game...also the bugs...they really needed to polish the game more before releasing. Other than that it has a lot of potential. Can't recommend it to others though atm.

Serafina

2018-10-01, 09:26 AM

So here's some thoughts on what to do with your companions, build-wise. I think each has some options that work and are reasonably interesting:

Amiri should just stick with her Barbarian levels, but how you use her can obviously vary. You can obviously build her for sheer damage, with rage powers such as Animal Fury and Reckless Stance - but you can also turn her into a pretty good tank. To do that, give her the Guarded Stance as well as it's upgrades, and you can always hand her a shield Since she gets immunity to flanking, and better Reflex saves, she'll actually be better than Valerie in many ways that way. Oh, and avoid giving her the Lethal Stance, it doesn't stack with the Bard Song.

Valerie is pretty good for just standing at the front and not getting hit, right? Well, her low Strength means she's not much of a threat in return. In my opinions, there's still several interesting ways to advance her:
- You can go and give her the Endurance feat, keep giving her Fighter-levels, and then give her levels in Stalward Defender.
- You can instead go for Dragon Disciple - all you really have to do is put skill ranks into Knowledge (Arcane) and give her one level of Sorcerer (or Eldritch Scion Magus), you can even finish out Fighter 5 - but this way, the extra Strength make her more dangerous, while the natural armor can help with her tanking, while she gains some spells and nice extra abilities.
- most unorthodox, go straight for Feyspeaker Druid. She has Charisma 15 - that's good enough as a casting stat to be workable. Yes, it'll cost her a lot of BAB - but you only want her to stand on the frontline and be threatening, right? She wasn't hitting things anyway, and yes Hide Armor costs her AC but she'll still be good. And the extra healing and defensive spells will be welcome in any party.
- for feats, Dazzling Display can work fine IME, it gives her something to do with her actions.

Octavia should just go for Arcane Trickster, it's just too good. Make her third-level feat Accomplished Sneak Attacker, don't take any more Rogue-levels, and take Arcane Trickster ASAP. Her damage output with cantrips is actually really dangerous, since you can currently profit from flanking when using them.

Regonar can either keep taking straight Magus levels, or go for Dragon Disciple. Both work fine.

Harrim should stick with Cleric levels, because obviously. A couple of builds can work feat-wise but mostly I'd support his casting.

Tristian should also stay a Cleric. You could go for a Mystic Theurge, but that'd put you four levels behind on casting.

Jaethal is a really great switch-hitter, but I prefer using her as an archer. That way, her needing her own healing-spells doesn't matter as much. Thus, give her feats like Point-Blank Range, Precise Shot, and Rapid Shot. The other question is what to do with her teamwork feats. Allied Spellcaster is great when she stands next to the parties spellcasters - that way, if you have her cast a spell, she gets a nice bonus. But you can also give her Precise Strike, Seize the Moment or Outflank (one of which sadly requires Combat Reflexes) to make her better as a switch-hitter who can go into melee when needed.

Linzi is in my opinion the perfect sixth party member. Lingering Performance, and some spellcasting feats, and she's golden. Spend her bardic talents on skill focus, and you'll have few if any troubles with knowledge and lore checks.

Firechanter

2018-10-01, 12:03 PM

Also, I guess I know the answer, but why does a shift from pen and paper to a video game mean you have to kill 10 bears for 18 experience instead of 1 bear for 180 experience? I suppose because a fight that might take an hour at a table would be over in 20 seconds on a game, but the large numbers do seem strange at times.

There's a setting in the game options that will vastly change the XP distribution. It's called "only active party members gain XP" or something, and I think it's disabled by default. As long as it's disabled, all XP you gain is apparently split among all potential companions that exist in the game, even if you haven't even met them yet. That will be one reason why so many opponents yield laughably little XP.

However, enabling that switch will mean the converse -- the XP you gain is only split among your current party members. So your Main will level faster, and all is well and dandy if you have a fixed party setup that you never change anyway, but Companions waiting at the base may quickly become useless if you don't exercise them for a while. I'm a bit in two minds about the matter myself.

--

@Serafina:
thanks for the analysis and outlook. Some comments:

- Regongar (sp?) is quite the glass cannon, which just 13 Dex and quite a long way to go until he can wear stronger armour. I haven't figured out yet if you can also give him a two-handed weapon. I'd kinda like to take him along, because his voice and lines are pretty nice, but I probably just don't need another melee.

- Octavia actually isnt as bad as I feared; she has a useful Spec and her stats are not bad either, with the exception of her terrible CON. What's nice is that you loot a +2 Int item at the same time you get her, so if your main isn't Int-based, Octavia is off for a good start.

- I only just unlocked Tristian so I can't tell yet what to make of him, or if I should switch Harrim out for him. Will see.

Some other notes on magic use:
- there are rather few spells even implemented in the game. This is basically a relative advantage for spontaneous casters and a drawback for prepared casters. Especially Wizards are a bit handicapped because there will often be just 1 or maybe 2 spells of your Specialized school per level.
- Summon Monster does not allow you to pick which monster type you get. Which is rather a bummer. There goes my plan of having a Fire Elemental deal with the nasty swarms. ;) Basically in most cases your summons will just be bags of meat (HP) that you throw at the enemies.
- Animal Companions start out ridiculously stronk, but may lose Oomph over the levels, because apparently they can't carry gear, and may have trouble getting through DR later on.

All in all, I'm less inclined to buy Caster Mercenaries now. So a dedicated Archer moves to the top of my list, but I suppose I should first pick up Jaethal and see how well she actually performs in that role.

Otherwise, suggestions how to build a great archer companion with the resources at hand would be welcome. ^^

Serafina

2018-10-01, 12:44 PM

Regonar needs to have his off-hand free, because he's a Magus. No dual-wielding, no two-handed weapons, no shield.
He'll get medium armor at 7th level, and of course you can also use spells like Mirror Image to make him a lot more durable.
The trick to using him effectively is to give him a touch-range cantrip to auto-cast, and to make use of Shocking Grasp frequently. For the cantrip, I recommend Touch of Fatigue - sure most enemies will make their save, but you might as well try.

As for an Archer - well, as I said, IMO Jaethal works perfectly. Good stats for it, good class for it, all she needs is the feats and you'll get those in time.
But if you want to go with a mercenary, you could go with an Eldritch Archer Magus, or a Divine Hunter Paladin.

lord_khaine

2018-10-01, 01:44 PM

So.. whats the current stance on this game?
Is it playable now?
Does it need a few additional months of polish before its playable?

Platinius

2018-10-01, 02:08 PM

It is very playable, though there is a definite learning curve. Still worth it!
(Do not be afraid to turn the difficulty down when it gets too difficult at first. There is no shame in trying to figure it out step by step^^)

In the 2nd chapter, you can get an archer ranger named Ekun, but he is a bit difficult to find.
He is in the watchtower map. On the map, go south and keep east until you see a wolf named Dog. Follow Dog up the hill. Enjoy your new at machinegun rate with sniper precision shooting archer^^

Seriously though, when I got him (I think he was lvl 5, but I may be wrong) he had 20 DEX and 16 STR and he is optimized for shooting with the (composite) longbow, making him ideal for his job which is dealing unmitigated raw weapons damage.

Octavia's build is a classic cheesy build from the tabletop game made even easier by the generous rules for backstabbing. (You need to get your target into melee with 2 people)
She uses her (infinite 0-level) spells to do these attacks (and they can crit and do double damage^^) which are touch attacks that hit incredibly easily (Touch AC doesn't really climb with CR), especially the further you come in the game. (Your attack bonus grows as you level; good times^^)
It is a bit tricky until you get it, but once you do, it rocks so hard.^^

I turned my Valerie into a sorceress based Eldritch Knight. She will still get 9th level spells if you do. Make that starting 15 CHA work for her! :)
If you take a draconic bloodline, you can also turn her into a Dragon Disciple if you like the fighting a bit more. (I took Celestial Bloodline, cause I thought to be cool having her like an angel descended from the heavens^^)

I turned my Tristian into a Mystic Theurge. (There is a sorcerer archtype that uses WIS instead of CHA) I don't know how "good" that really is, but I thought it to be cool and I had never played with a Mystic Theurge before.^^

Firechanter

2018-10-01, 02:21 PM

Oh, I'd say it's totally playable and quite addictive. No bad bugs found here so far, and the difficulty issues seem to have been resolved. I had reduced my game to Normal for a while but reset it to PnP (Custom settings) again after several fights that had been touted as "very hard" seemed actually rather easy.
The long and short of it seems to be: you need to know the Pathfinder rules and must not be loth to micro-manage your characters round by round (or at least every couple of rounds). If you want to just rush through the fights, the easier difficulty settings will allow that.

A buddy of mine (who plays on one of the harder difficulties) has explored a barrow in chapter 2 and almost painted himself into a corner there: after moving a lever, the way out was blocked, and he had absolutely no chance against the boss. And not even a recent savegame to load, either. So basically, he would have been screwed - but you can reduce the difficulty at any time and get out of a tight spot that way.

In general, YMMV. The aforementioned buddy and another one play both play on harder modes and enjoy it a lot, even if they have to reload 20 times for a fight. My frustration threshold is lower than that. They also both somehow managed to recruit 2 Mercs at level 2, where I didn't even have enough money for 1. No idea how they did that.

Shepsquared

2018-10-01, 06:58 PM

Kind of an odd question: what are the options for a druid's animal companion? I'm hoping I can grab a thycaline, since its an enemy in the game and an option in the tabletop campaign.

Inarius

2018-10-01, 07:37 PM

Octavia's build is a classic cheesy build from the tabletop game made even easier by the generous rules for backstabbing. (You need to get your target into melee with 2 people)
She uses her (infinite 0-level) spells to do these attacks (and they can crit and do double damage^^) which are touch attacks that hit incredibly easily (Touch AC doesn't really climb with CR), especially the further you come in the game. (Your attack bonus grows as you level; good times^^)

Backstabbing rules are even more generous than that. You don't need 2 people in melee, one person in melee and one person shooting with a ranged weapon is enough to trigger flanking. I'm not sure if 2 people with ranged weapons engaging one target qualifies as flanking since I don't use any ranged sneak attackers, but it wouldn't surprise me if it qualified as flanking.

huttj509

2018-10-01, 08:13 PM

Backstabbing rules are even more generous than that. You don't need 2 people in melee, one person in melee and one person shooting with a ranged weapon is enough to trigger flanking. I'm not sure if 2 people with ranged weapons engaging one target qualifies as flanking since I don't use any ranged sneak attackers, but it wouldn't surprise me if it qualified as flanking.

I suspect it's "if you are attacking someone who is in melee range with someone other than you." Because how could you determine if someone's being threatened by multiple archers?

Firechanter

2018-10-01, 08:26 PM

Kind of an odd question: what are the options for a druid's animal companion? I'm hoping I can grab a thycaline, since its an enemy in the game and an option in the tabletop campaign.

Leopard. It will solo most encounters, allowing you to eat pistachios and watch.
Thyca...things are not on the list I think, or at least I didn't see them.

Shepsquared

2018-10-01, 09:11 PM

Leopard. It will solo most encounters, allowing you to eat pistachios and watch.
Thyca...things are not on the list I think, or at least I didn't see them.
Thycalines, they replaced wolves in the tutorial for random encounters. Aka Tasmanian Tigers.

Ah well, I'll cope without them. Guess my dwarf won't be inexplicable Australian in my head though.

Anteros

2018-10-01, 09:40 PM

Thycalines, they replaced wolves in the tutorial for random encounters. Aka Tasmanian Tigers.

Ah well, I'll cope without them. Guess my dwarf won't be inexplicable Australian in my head though.

Isn't it Thylacines? Or is it something different than what I'm thinking of? I'm not familiar with Pathfinder at all.

Renegade Paladin

2018-10-01, 09:50 PM

RazorChain

2018-10-01, 11:01 PM

Finished Chapter 1 on challenging difficulty with normal enemies.

The only thing that bothers me so far is enemy stat inflation....every frigging bandit with a bow has a Dex of 18. Seems like the guy who made the enemy NPC's was an optimizer and then Chriss Avelone came along and made a bunch of quirky NPC companions who aren't optimized to deal with the challenge.

Luckily this becomes better when you level up your group.

Currently in my group I have

Amiri as a flanker. That Ginormous sword just gets in the way at the start, instead of spending a feat on the bastard sword she could have taken a power attack and used a Great sword which would have paid off. I wish she had a Str 18 but they that's why we have a belts with +2 Str for. She is my most reliable damage output at the start of the game as she can hit really hard.

Valerie. Starts to shine at level 5 when she gets rid of that tower shield penalty and by now she has AC 33 which is enough to anchor my frontline, with bastar sword expertise and a flaming bastard sword she now has a decent damage output, think I'll keep her

Jaethal: Like her, that's why I'm keeping her, everyone needs a snotty elf i their party

Octavia: Made her an arcane trickster....and boy does she manage to hit hard with ther ranged touch attacks

Tristian: Was going to switch him out for Harrim but the whiny old pal has kinda grown on me so I think I'll keep him in my group

Corwin Darkshard: Known as Baron Darkshard of the barony of Darkshard. Wizard Evoker that blasts things to pieces

Shepsquared

2018-10-02, 12:05 AM

Isn't it Thylacines? Or is it something different than what I'm thinking of? I'm not familiar with Pathfinder at all.
Yes, yes it is. I should know that dammit.

Finished Chapter 1 on challenging difficulty with normal enemies.

The only thing that bothers me so far is enemy stat inflation....every frigging bandit with a bow has a Dex of 18. Seems like the guy who made the enemy NPC's was an optimizer and then Chriss Avelone came along and made a bunch of quirky NPC companions who aren't optimized to deal with the challenge.

Luckily this becomes better when you level up your group.

Currently in my group I have

Amiri as a flanker. That Ginormous sword just gets in the way at the start, instead of spending a feat on the bastard sword she could have taken a power attack and used a Great sword which would have paid off. I wish she had a Str 18 but they that's why we have a belts with +2 Str for. She is my most reliable damage output at the start of the game as she can hit really hard.

Valerie. Starts to shine at level 5 when she gets rid of that tower shield penalty and by now she has AC 33 which is enough to anchor my frontline, with bastar sword expertise and a flaming bastard sword she now has a decent damage output, think I'll keep her

Jaethal: Like her, that's why I'm keeping her, everyone needs a snotty elf i their party

Octavia: Made her an arcane trickster....and boy does she manage to hit hard with ther ranged touch attacks

Tristian: Was going to switch him out for Harrim but the whiny old pal has kinda grown on me so I think I'll keep him in my group

Corwin Darkshard: Known as Baron Darkshard of the barony of Darkshard. Wizard Evoker that blasts things to pieces

In all fairness we can only blame them for choosing to use Amiri, not for her build. Having an oversized weapon has been her whole thing since the start of Pathfinder. The fact that she doesn't have a modified Titan mauler archetype or something is pretty unforgivable though.

VexingFool

2018-10-02, 03:38 AM

Well the iconic Amiri has a STR-18 and CON-14. For whatever reason they decided to make them both 16. Even in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game she has a higher STR than CON. Since she is only a 20 pt buy she is easily replaced with a better built companion.

Valerie is a 27 pt buy, although a very un-optimized one. But she is serviceable due to the AI not being too good about bypassing tanks. I have her with dazzling display and it makes a nice opening debuff. I'm going to take her into Stalwart Defender and I saw someone suggest getting 1 level of Thug rogue for the buff to shaken->frightened. I've had good luck with her getting a bunch of monsters stacked up on her and Linzi hitting them with Glitterdust.

Harrim is not a terrible build but he is only 20 pt buy. It sucks that he has a low CHA and DEX. If he had one less WIS to start he would be able to have a DEX-12 or CHA-12. The charisma would be nice for the extra channel and maybe putting him in range of selective channel.

Tristian is 29 pt buy but has way over invested in WIS and CHA. Those points would have been better spent elsewhere. Since he is an Ecclesitheurge he has no armor and his poor DEX makes him pretty squishy. At least he has selective channel and a decent number of Channel Energies. Just wish the quick channel feat was in.

Thinking of making my Druid game an all custom built party everyone with animal companions. I might sub in a bard just for the buffs to all the critters.

Druid
Sylvan Sorcerer
Monster Tactician Inquisitor w/Animal Domain
Cleric of Erastil w/Animal and Plant Domain
Mad Dog Barbarian
Ranger

IMO humans are the best race in this game. The +1 skill point/level is huge with the consolidated skills and reduced INT/class skill points. If you are running a human Fighter, Cleric or Paladin and are not planning to go above INT 10 then dump INT to 7. You get the same amount of skill points per level and more points to put somewhere else.

lord_khaine

2018-10-02, 05:30 AM

Alright thanks for the recomendations. Does sound like the game is worth giving a chance then.

Does the game have a gigantic memory leak for anyone else? The longer I play, the longer load times get, and if I exit the game after playing for more than a couple of hours, my (powerful desktop) computer takes at least ten minutes to recover enough to even run a browser without lagging.

This does concern me though. I dont have a powerful desktop. Only a normal one.
Has anyone else experienced this?

Firechanter

2018-10-02, 05:33 AM

Does the game have a gigantic memory leak for anyone else? The longer I play, the longer load times get, and if I exit the game after playing for more than a couple of hours, my (powerful desktop) computer takes at least ten minutes to recover enough to even run a browser without lagging.

So far it doesn't. I play on a regular laptop with an i3 and 6G of RAM. Load times are pretty annoying and I usually close my browser to play in order to give the game more breathing space. All things considered it runs pretty well on the laptop, and I'm happy about that because it means I can play during work downtime. ^^

Eldonauran

2018-10-02, 10:22 AM

Druid
Sylvan Sorcerer
Monster Tactician Inquisitor w/Animal Domain
Cleric of Erastil w/Animal and Plant Domain
Mad Dog Barbarian
Ranger
I had to do a double take when I saw your party configuration. I am currently running a VERY similar custom group myself and we are RUINING the enemies, even on challenging (The group is now level 5). We managed to kill off the were-rats in that one cave when we were 3rd level. Magic saved us cause we DID NOT have the weapons needed for really hurting them. Warm bodies helped (summons).

Aasimar Inquisitor (Monster Tactician) w/ Animal Domain (Leopard + Boon companion)
Monster summoning + Augmented Summoning + Teamwork feats
Character is ranged and a buffer
Inquisitor all the way, no multiclassing

Human Cleric (Herald Caller) of Erastil w/ Animal Domain (Smilodon + Boon Companion)
Character is Melee oriented, one handed + shield
Summons before entering challenging combat
Gets the augmented summoning stuff in place of 1 domain
Selective Channeling for in combat mass healing of companions
Cleric all the way, no multiclassing

Dwarven Barbarian (Mad Dog) / Fighter / Ranger (Freebooter) (Smilodon + Boon Companion)
Yeah, he kills stuff. Needs iron will for the horrible will save
Flanks with companion for more hit, power attack, uses falcata + shield
Eventually going to be Barbarian 16 / Fighter 2 / Ranger 2

Human Druid (Feyspeaker) / Sorcerer (Sylvan) [Mystic Theurge eventually] (Leopard w/ Boon Companion)
This character is a long term project, so far (Druid 4 / Sorcerer 1) he mage armor's the companions (Spell Specialization for 3 hour buff). Entangles, ranged attacks. Acid splash for TROLLS.
Druid focused, for wildshape escape options. Probably Druid 6 / Sorcerer 4 / Mystic Theurge 10

Halfling Bard (Thundercaller)
Force multiplier, 'nuff said.
Ranged combat, skill monkey, backup trickery
Bard all the way... No multiclassing

Halfling Rogue (Eldritch Scoundrel) / Monk (Scaled Fist) / Paladin (Divine Hunter)
Switch hitter, for protecting the squishies. Also, 3rd level paladin gives precise shot to other archers that target same enemy. MASSIVE saves (we are talking fort 11, ref 11, will 8 at level 4).
This is my main trickery/stealth character
Probably going to be Rogue 4 / Monk 13 / Paladin 3

Inarius

2018-10-02, 07:23 PM

I suspect it's "if you are attacking someone who is in melee range with someone other than you." Because how could you determine if someone's being threatened by multiple archers?

Well I can confirm its just two people attacking one target is whats considered flanking. Managed to have my archer and arcane trickster on one target and I was getting spell sneak attacks on it without any melee even remotely close to the enemy.

Firechanter

2018-10-02, 09:54 PM

Goodness gracious, I just played literally all through the night. oÔ

@Eldonauran:
I also noticed today that technically you can run a party of 6 with 6 Full Animal Companions and not use a class twice. :p
It's also funny how the Ranger doesn't have an AT that gives it a full pet progression without Boon Companion.
--

I fiddled around with a new game, then wasn't quite happy with that character and went back to the old one. I missed out on some goodies that were bugged in the release version, but CBA to replay everything just to pick up those trinkets. Either way, I finally got around to hiring two Mercs for my party. So now I use a mix of standard and custom companions:

Main: Aasimar (Angelkin) Paladin of Irori. There's not really much going on with Paladin feats, so no need to take Human. Fights with a big fat Greatsword now (which btw looks awesome) but eventually I'll have her switch to Falchion around level 9 (when I can take Improved Crit).

Mercs:
- Human Fighter skilled as Archer. Once she has picked up Weapon Training I'm probably gonna switch to Rogue for Sneak Attack. Note that Dueling Gloves are in the game, so together with Weapon Training that's an extra +3 To Hit and Damage.

- Human Inquisitor of Erastil (Monster Tactician) with Animal Domain, and 1 level of Mad Dog Barbarian to bring the Pet (Leopard of course) online and up to par at level 3, and also to pick up Martial Weapons. I'm either gonna skill him tanky with Sword & Board, or give him a Polearm and Combat Reflexes. The latter probably will make sense once multiple Summons come online. Has replaced Amiri in my party.

Companions:
I now have all Comps you can find in the first chapter, but I think the ones I'm gonna stick with in party are Linzi, Octavia and Tristian. As I said before, a Merc Bard would certainly be more effective, but I kinda like the little bug. :smallbiggrin: Octavia for Wizard / Arcane Trickster. As for Tristian, he has a lot of healing so that's nice; honestly I didn't even try to figure out his Ecclesi.. Escleti... his AT abilities. Pushed a crossbow in his hands to he doesn't charge into battle and have him keep an eye out for HP status. Maybe I'll kick him out later if I don't need his Channels anymore.

BTW I had been misinformed and also passed on faulty information in this thread: Mercs are PB20, not 25. Sorry about that.

It's a party of 6 so I am not getting an XP boost, but wouldn't really know who to leave behind. Currently no problems with PnP difficulty settings.

Sloanzilla

2018-10-02, 10:46 PM

This game is weird. Ran into a leopard at level 2. I did 60 damage to him and wiped.

Sloanzilla

2018-10-02, 10:49 PM

oh yeah and DC 35 to use a scroll of cure blind?

Kaptin Keen

2018-10-02, 11:05 PM

oh yeah and DC 35 to use a scroll of cure blind?

Well, I mean ... unless it's written in braille? =)

Eldonauran

2018-10-03, 12:20 AM

This game is weird. Ran into a leopard at level 2. I did 60 damage to him and wiped.Yeah, some of those static areas are not set to randomize their creaturesand their CR. The mature leopard and the were-rats, for example. I encountered the leopard after my attack on the Stag Lord, and it was more of a speed bump than anything. "Oh, look. The newest of our Smilodons got a bit of a scratch."

oh yeah and DC 35 to use a scroll of cure blind?
That is being fixed in the new hotfix. DC was 20+Caster Level. Being changed to 20+spell level.

On a side note... I really hope they add in an option to edit portraits/voices after character creation. My Mad Dog Barbarian hairy male dwarf is sounding a tad ... less masculine than intended. Hahaha. Didn't notice I was on the female voices (and had headphones off) when picking his voice.

VexingFool

2018-10-03, 12:30 AM

This game is weird. Ran into a leopard at level 2. I did 60 damage to him and wiped.
Is it an ill tempered leopard?:smalltongue: Seriously though if it is the Elder leopard that is a pretty tough fight. I used the pre-order color spray item to stun him 3 times and it took a couple of reloads.

@Eldonauran

Looks like a good setup. I'm going to try and use a different animal type for each character even though it's less optimal. Is there a way to name your animal companions? I really want to name my mammoth Snuffy.

Shepsquared

2018-10-03, 02:23 AM

So are Octavia and Rehgongar not voiced, or is there a bug affecting my save?

Platinius

2018-10-03, 02:47 AM

They are voiced, but (like every other character) not for every single thing. Still, you should hear them speak often.:smallconfused:

Firechanter

2018-10-03, 04:40 AM

Eldonauran

2018-10-03, 10:11 AM

@Eldonauran

Looks like a good setup. I'm going to try and use a different animal type for each character even though it's less optimal. Is there a way to name your animal companions? I really want to name my mammoth Snuffy.
No way that I have found to rename the animal companions. Makes it a little confusing for me when I have two leopards and two smilodons and can't tell who they belong to. Also, they need to add a way to quickly check the hp of the companions without having to open the character screen on each of the companions. I say just add it under the name tag on the tooltip.

Oh, and I finally got into the 2nd Chapter (I took my time, this is the third character that I've tried and actually like). Going on with the cat theme, I have official named my kingdom "The Pridelands" and my capital is now "Pride Rock". I am absolutely LOVING that fact that I've run into several clerics of Erastil and how its playing a large role in my game so far. I don't know if that's by design or not (maybe if you picked a different deity, the NPCs might be slightly different) but it certainly helps my immersion.

My aforementioned buddy is pretty miffed because he rolled a Diviner Wizard, and there are only _4_ (Arcane) Divination spells in the entire game. Conjuration is also not the domineering school we know from the tabletop. Some of the best Conj spells have been moved to other schools, for instance Web is Transmutation here. Yeah... I really wanted some way of prebuilding the character to see all the options (if there is a way I have NOT found it). Either way, I'd have never made a wizard in this game with anything other than Evocation school, as CRPGs tend to focus more on hack and slash than what you would expect in a normal campaign. Different assumptions have to go in towards character creation.

Serafina

2018-10-03, 10:44 AM

Yeah the amount of information offered in-game is pretty atrocious.
You can't see in advance what "Rage Powers" or "Rogue Talents" or the like even are - sure, you could access the wiki, but that stuff should really be in-game.
Likewise, you can't see at all which spells each class gets, or when they get their next spell level.
How saves or BAB advance is also pretty obscure - and considering that may or may not change for at leat one archetype (the Feyspeaker druid gets low BAB in Pathfinder, do they in this game?) that's pretty bleh.

And the wiki for the game doesn't even have all that information yet, and relying on the PFSRD or Archives of Nethys not only makes this game even harder to access for people, but is also unreliable because some stuff just works differently in this game than in Pathfinder (which is a good thing, mind).

Firechanter

2018-10-03, 11:30 AM

Yah I feel ya, I already restarted 3 times or so. That's relatively normal for me with CRPGs, though. Sure it's annoying to redo the starting levels over and over, but better than realizing much later that you aren't happy with choices you made in the early game.
Today I actually restarted my so far favourite character - Luciel, the Angelkin Paladin - because I felt I was losing out from continuing a pre-patch game. The patched game fixes some issues and gives you a better start in general. And in my experience, replaying stuff you did before goes much faster than the first time round.

My plan now is to pick up an Archer merc asap. The other merc is supposed to be a Beastmaster, but I'm not quite sure if I want to recreate the Monster Tactician or try one of the other, oh, six possible builds to get it. Anyway, that one's not super urgent; if I take one that needs Boon Companion I might hold off until level 5.
(Actually, the Mad Dog 1 / Inqui X Combo was a bit of a nonsense; sure you get the pet online immediately, but before level 4 it's rubbish anyway.)

Narkis

2018-10-03, 02:28 PM

Can anyone who's advanced in the game tell me if I can enchant Amiri's oversized Bastard Sword? I'm level 3 now, and debating on whether I should stick with it or take Weapon Focus: Greatsword.

Eldonauran

2018-10-03, 04:28 PM

Well, you CAN preview rogue ralents, bard talents, rage powers, and the like (not spells sadly) but you have to be at the level where you get to pick one and then select the “show unavailable” button.

Sloanzilla

2018-10-03, 09:48 PM

Yeah, some of those static areas are not set to randomize their creaturesand their CR. The mature leopard and the were-rats, for example. I encountered the leopard after my attack on the Stag Lord, and it was more of a speed bump than anything. "Oh, look. The newest of our Smilodons got a bit of a scratch."

I don't mind that- I mean if I wander into the fire giant cave at level 2 that is my problem- I should not get a weak fire giant.
But a warg with a +16 attack in a starting area? Why does that warg have a +16 to attack?

Inarius

2018-10-03, 11:26 PM

When I rolled my Inquisitor merc, only one voiceset played (Confident iirc), the others simply remained silent. Don't know if that's intentional.

BTW: have you noticed? The game offers very little information on the spellcasting capabilities of the classes. Unless I simply missed it, the ingame class overview doesn't tell when and how many spell levels a particular class can access, let alone which ones. That's certainly not a big deal for tabletop players, but gamers who don't know the 3E chassis will be rather clueless. Also, the Wiki contains spell lists for all the primary casters now, but not for the Paladin and Ranger. Now that's a tad annoying.

My aforementioned buddy is pretty miffed because he rolled a Diviner Wizard, and there are only _4_ (Arcane) Divination spells in the entire game. Conjuration is also not the domineering school we know from the tabletop. Some of the best Conj spells have been moved to other schools, for instance Web is Transmutation here.

The voiceset thing must be a bug, every time I make a new merc I get only 1-3 of the voices to actually play while the remaining ones stay silent.

As for the spellcasting classes, yeah its really bad in general. Even the spell descriptions are awful. There are more than a few spells with awfully vague descriptions. If I hadn't played 3.5 I would have no idea what those spells do and even then its been like a decade so my memory is spotty at best.

Then there's the lack of info on prestige classes. I'm just aiming for duelist on my sword saint/aldori defender since my stats line up with it, but I really can't remember what specifically the class offers.

I don't mind that- I mean if I wander into the fire giant cave at level 2 that is my problem- I should not get a weak fire giant.
But a warg with a +16 attack in a starting area? Why does that warg have a +16 to attack?

The warg is probably a foe that you're meant to go back for. There's even a demi lich encounter in that area with like 36 AC. I started the encounter and after about 3 rounds I was just like NOPE, Reload.

Eldonauran

2018-10-04, 01:25 AM

I don't mind that- I mean if I wander into the fire giant cave at level 2 that is my problem- I should not get a weak fire giant.
But a warg with a +16 attack in a starting area? Why does that warg have a +16 to attack?
Oh, THAT beastie. At the tree. I admit I never actually went back to check his attack rolls. I was level 3 at the time and had a leopard (and a smilodon) with around 26 ac (Mage Armor!) and summoned 1d3 Celestial dogs for tanking. Him and his three wolves did not last very long and his amulet of mighty fist +1 was totally worth it. The dogs did die and the cats took serious beatings, but we did it.

But I can see how that fight would be a problem. Sometimes you need to run away. Like that damn demilich. I'll get him as soon as I hit level 10. *grumble*

Stuebi

2018-10-04, 02:14 AM

I tried the game on a friends Account, and so far I'm very glad I did not buy it myself.

The main problem, as far as I can tell, the d20 system just doesn't translate well into a videogame. I want to cry everytime a combat round plays through and all you get to see is "Miss, Miss, Miss" from both enemies and your own companions. The game is also not terribly good at telling you things, the menus are in desperate need of Tooltips, or the game just needs a general Almanach somewhere. When you do a game like this, have the mercy to assume that not everybody just knows Pathfinder rules and can quote them from memory. Especially if not all the rules actually apply.

The difficulty settings seem really far apart. The Default Hard Setting forces me to inch my way forward, even the Tutorial was an absolute slog. Normal on the other Hand flip-flops between no challenge at all and Encounters that seem borderline unwinable. I had no problem with the swarms personally, I had grabbed a few flasks to throw at them before. What ruined my day was a werewolf and some weird bear-treant thing, both of which seemed like a very sudden spike out of nowhere.

The companions are really subpar, which is sad, because I usually try to stick to the ones with story so you don't just carry 7 faceless schlubs around. But considering how bad they actually are, I just can't be bothered... but then you realize that you have to buy custom companions for a sizeable amount of Gold. It's a really bad sign if I feel like I have to run cheat engine after barely an hour of playtime. Why do they cost money in the first place? If you have balancing concerns, make non-useless companions or limit me to a certain partysize depending on level. It's really sad too, because I actually really like some of the actual characters.

I haven't really played any further, because the game ate my savefile, and I frankly don't believe it's worth starting over again. Although a few fixes and a mod that makes custom companions free or cheaper would already make it more bearable.

Firechanter

2018-10-04, 03:26 AM

Yeah, I'm totally with you there; custom companions should be free or at least cheaper; after all you also have to outfit them. And it's really annoying that the premade companions are so gimped just so that they can be special snowflakes.
Well, technically I suppose Valerie isn't even that bad due to the limitations of the game engine, if you manage to get her to the front line first. But she's also the companion whose personality doesn't appeal to me at all, so I see no reason to keep her for the interaction, and you can build a Merc to tank just as well (or better).

--

Some thoughts about Beastmasters:
As mentioned above, there are no less than six classes that can get a pet, from Mad Dog Barbarian to Sylvan Sorcerer. Each of them has some unique benefits and some drawbacks. Let me try to sort them a bit, and feel free to chime in:

* Barbarian (Mad Dog)
+ Full BAB class, Martial proficiencies, Full Pet progression (so you don't need Boon Companion)
- no spells, can't buff the pet
Verdict: probably the weakest choice (next to Ranger)

* Cleric (Animal Domain)
+ reasonable martial skills, 9 level spellcasting, plenty of healing built-in
- rather MAD if you want to engage in physical combat and channel energy; no dedicated pet buff spells, reduced pet progression

* Druid
+ super versatile, Full Pet, 9-level spellcasting, Wild Shape, option to go Cha-Based, dedicated Pet Buff spells, what have you.
- pretty MAD if you want it all; still, rolling a Druid always feels a bit like cheating to me.

* Inquisitor (Animal Domain)
+ reasonable martial skills, 6 level spellcating
- reduced Pet progression (need Boon Companion); no tailored Buff spells on your spell list
Note: you can combine Animal Domain with Monster Tactician signifiantly expand your zoo.

* Inquisitor (Huntsmaster AT)
+ as above, but Full Pet, benefits from Teamwork feats
- other AT features are weakish, like Favoured Enemy that will be useless most of the time; no tailored pet buff spells

* Ranger
+ Full BAB, good combat skills
- reduced Pet progression, poor spellcasting
Note: ironically, the Ranger - who in older D&D edition was the ONLY class that got a pet - is probably the worst choice to spec as Beastmaster.

* Sorcerer (Sylvan)
+ 9 level spellcasting, some exclusive defensive spells that work extremely well on your pet, like Mage Armor and Shield
- has no business engaging in physical combat, many AT features seem rather useless.

So much for starters; did I miss anything? Which one(s) would or do you prefer?

Aotrs Commander

2018-10-04, 04:41 AM

Mmm. Definitely gonna leave this for a few patches, I think, from the sound of things, let them get some of the bugs out and maybe fix a few of the flaws, maybe.

No rush. I have plenty of other games to play in the meantime, and they already have my pennies. It took War for the Overworld a goodly while to go from its dubious release state up to the level it is (and personally, I think that level is nudging DK1, now which is about as high a praise as you can get.)

I mean, I haven't played Pillars of Eternity 2 proper since I found all the companion bugs and at this point I'm, like, "well, isn't the third expansion due sometimes this year anyway, might as well wait for that anyway."

At the very least, not gonna touch it until the save-eating bugs are definitely nixed, that's a pretty severe one.

Sloanzilla

2018-10-04, 09:15 AM

Firechanter

2018-10-04, 11:59 AM

Argh, wrote a post and then forgot to hit Send before closing the browser... well, stupidity must be punished I presume.

So what I was going to say: pretty much every game, and especially every computer game, as a dominant strategy. For this game here, it turns out to be "Archers, Pets and Summons". (Note how well your starting companions can supply any of these elements... not.) One of my buddies who plays on Challenging has reshuffled his party to contain 6 Archers, 2 Pets and various Summons. While this probably wouldn't fly for long in a tabletop game, since the GM would just break out enemies that can counter this strategy, the game AI simply doesn't have a counter-strategy to this other than "bigger numbers". And ironically, it's "bigger numbers" that encourages the player to use this strategy in the first place.

To paraphrase him: the insane bit is that when a heavy hitter rolls a crit, if he hits a Summon, the Summon shrugs and disappears. If he hits a character, the character is dead.
Lesson learned: never let a character get into melee.

--

Going back to the XP question. Yes, now I have confirmed that XP is way too low even with XP sharing disabled. For instance, I just killed the Man-Eating Troll with a party levels 2 to 3. Total XP awarded: 648 or something. Split six ways. So just over 100XP per character, in what was a _really_ nasty fight that I had to micromanage action by action and ended with 1 or 2 characters down. In PF, even a regular troll is worth 1600XP, and that one doesn't have +15 To Hit and AC20. By my reckoning, the Man Eater should be worth at least 3200XP. Split six-ways, that's over 500 per.
I don't mind cannonfodder like Mites not giving full XP but with special monsters like that, I feel seriously shortchanged.

Eldonauran

2018-10-04, 12:22 PM

To paraphrase him: the insane bit is that when a heavy hitter rolls a crit, if he hits a Summon, the Summon shrugs and disappears. If he hits a character, the character is dead.
Lesson learned: never let a character get into melee. Personally, I've always thought this was a good idea. Why go into melee range, when you have other options available? Melee should be a last resort but you need to prepare for that occurrence, because it will happen. I think this is especially important in cRPGs, like Kingmaker.

Going back to the XP question. Yes, now I have confirmed that XP is way too low even with XP sharing disabled. For instance, I just killed the Man-Eating Troll with a party levels 2 to 3. Total XP awarded: 648 or something. Split six ways. So just over 100XP per character, in what was a _really_ nasty fight that I had to micromanage action by action and ended with 1 or 2 characters down. In PF, even a regular troll is worth 1600XP, and that one doesn't have +15 To Hit and AC20. By my reckoning, the Man Eater should be worth at least 3200XP. Split six-ways, that's over 500 per.
I don't mind cannonfodder like Mites not giving full XP but with special monsters like that, I feel seriously shortchanged.That is just the nature of cRPGs. You are going to be fighting a LOT more enemies, in quicker succession, than you would on the table top due to the speed at which all the math and die rolling occurs. I felt shortchanged as well, considering I created an additional 5 characters and the experience is being shared with ALL of characters. I turned off sharing exp until my main group hit level 5 (ie, the 'cruise' point of my build where everything starts operating at peak efficiency) and then allowed everyone else to get exp. It still saddens me briefly when I kill something a everyone gets 9 experience, but it will add up eventually. Main group is level 5 (main character is about 2,700 exp higher than the rest) and the other non-used characters are around level 3.

Spore

2018-10-04, 12:34 PM

That is just the nature of cRPGs. You are going to be fighting a LOT more enemies, in quicker succession, than you would on the table top due to the speed at which all the math and die rolling occurs. I felt shortchanged as well, considering I created an additional 5 characters and the experience is being shared with ALL of characters. I turned off sharing exp until my main group hit level 5 (ie, the 'cruise' point of my build where everything starts operating at peak efficiency) and then allowed everyone else to get exp. It still saddens me briefly when I kill something a everyone gets 9 experience, but it will add up eventually. Main group is level 5 (main character is about 2,700 exp higher than the rest) and the other non-used characters are around level 3.

Back when I switched from Diablo 2 to Baldurs Gate 1, I farmed second level by beating up kobolds and shriekers before I finally understood that quests gave the majority of XP. I won't tell you it was hard because I thought high AC was good in that game and subsequentially run with an all-leather armor group.

These buggers awarded 15 XP each (split 6 ways so 2 per person so the engine even took pity on me and gave me a 20% XP boost). I can still hear their sound files at night when particularly frisky or territorial cats fight and love in front of my window.

But yes, how is quest density? Because as I see it, Chapter one is just bread crumb quests imho to go somewhere and don't require major input in order to resolve themselves. "Tartuccio is investigating some powerful ancient ruin, follow him." followed by "you found Tartuccio, now fight his mercenaries." and the lot. Retrieving the innkeeper's ring is just a fetch quest that forces more camp mechanics on you. but oh well, I still dont dare to venture into the game in fear of overlooking something crucial and neckbreaking during the kingdom chapters.

Firechanter

2018-10-04, 12:39 PM

Personally, I've always thought this was a good idea. Why go into melee range, when you have other options available? Melee should be a last resort but you need to prepare for that occurrence, because it will happen.

Who says that Melee should be a last resort? Who gets to decide how people are allowed to have fun? This is a fantasy game, not a COSIM. A lot of players, myself included, enjoy playing honest-to-goodness Melee characters. Or at least, would enjoy, if the system didn't give them the short end of the stick. Compare the old 3E gripe, "Melee can't have Nice Things". People wouldn't complain about that if they really didn't _want_ to play Melee. So for this faction, a system that discourages you to play what you really would enjoy, and makes you take a more effective, different approach, probably with lots of magic involved, is not satisfactory.

Okay, sure -- in PFKM you can always weaken or turn off Crits. I might yet decide to do that in order to keep my Melee Main playable, but it does change the game balance quite significantly, so I don't want to be hasty.
Let's just keep in mind there's a reason why the Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier is such a popular item in groups that did not adopt the nerf that made the item utterly useless.

As for the "nature of CRPGs": considering how often you sometimes have to reload, I'm not so sure that you actually get a higher kill-per-hour rate in this game. :6

Eldonauran

2018-10-04, 02:46 PM

Who says that Melee should be a last resort? Who gets to decide how people are allowed to have fun? This is a fantasy game, not a COSIM. A lot of players, myself included, enjoy playing honest-to-goodness Melee characters. Or at least, would enjoy, if the system didn't give them the short end of the stick. Compare the old 3E gripe, "Melee can't have Nice Things". People wouldn't complain about that if they really didn't _want_ to play Melee. So for this faction, a system that discourages you to play what you really would enjoy, and makes you take a more effective, different approach, probably with lots of magic involved, is not satisfactory. I wasn't claiming an universal truth, merely my own preference in approaching situations that the game present to you. I tend to orient towards the effective solutions when it comes to battle and tactics. People can play however they want. Games, especially computer games, can NOT appeal to every type of play style or preference equally. If people go in expecting a game to cater towards their playstyle (and I am NOT saying you are), they can, and will, develop some negative feelings when it doesn't match their expectation. I can only suggest that they adapt to the game and learn to enjoy that process.

Okay, sure -- in PFKM you can always weaken or turn off Crits. I might yet decide to do that in order to keep my Melee Main playable, but it does change the game balance quite significantly, so I don't want to be hasty.
Let's just keep in mind there's a reason why the Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier is such a popular item in groups that did not adopt the nerf that made the item utterly useless. Yes, the difficulty slider is there for a reason and should be used to customize you game experience. I certainly won't frown or look down at someone who plays the game on story mode. Hell, I will eventually play the game on story mode (or turn it down that far if necessary to keep from getting stuck). Don't forget that you can still play at the Hard, or challenging mode, and simply turn down one or two settings to help the issue. It will say 'custom' at that point, but you can always set the base difficulty first.

As for the "nature of CRPGs": considering how often you sometimes have to reload, I'm not so sure that you actually get a higher kill-per-hour rate in this game. :6I actually reload a lot, especially when it comes to picking locks. I HATE that a character only gets one shot per level at a lock. That is me forcing a 'take a 20' on the attempt.

Firechanter

2018-10-04, 03:50 PM

Yeah, they really should have just made that a game setting: "Retry Trickery checks" or something. That way both the "let the dice fall where they may" and "I want to Take 20" factions could both be happy. Just like you can also set the game to ignore carrying capacity during overland travel.

Which is btw what I have done today. It's ridiculous that rations weigh what, 5, 10 lbs a pop? Yeah I know, it also says "camping supplies", but whoever set those values has apparently never been camping. You don't use up 10lbs of single-use items per person per night. Outfitting a party of 6 for a week-long trip, over 400 lbs? Ridiculous. Laughable. Absurd. Grotesque.

Besides, why can't we just loan a mule? Or horses? In our tabletop game, we simply explore on horseback, and leave the beasts behind when we go into tactical movement. Granted, the scale of the Stolen Lands map seems to be much smaller in PFKM -- my party just travelled from Tuskutters Lair to Oleg's in one day. On the tabletop map, that would be something like 40 miles as the crow flies - and probably 60 miles actually navigating the wilderness. Not bad a day trip for a CON 8 Wizard, eh? xD

Still, it just sucks to run out of rations.
Also, it occured to me just today that I've been a fool not to simply create caches at various locations. Thorn Ford is a good place. Sycamore another. Just drop 12-18 rations each there and you can quickly rest and resupply from there.

BTW, I suppose I can be proud of Amiri. She actually did solo Tuskgutter (level 3). ^^ My casters buffed her up beforehand, but after that I left it entirely up to her.
Almost a shame that she's next on the replacement list. xD

Eldonauran

2018-10-04, 05:12 PM

Yeah, rations do seem to weigh a lot, but I think it is more like 2 to 3 meals in one ration. Resting can take anywhere from 8 hours (if no camouflage, cooking, or hunting is needed/allowed) to longer, like 16 hours or more. Really depends on how well your Nature checks works out. I havent experienced running out of rations, having only had to use three (yes, 3) so far, as hunting usually provides the rations we need. We've got a really good Nature check.

I never thought about leaving things at different area locations. Past game experiences leave me wary of leaving things behind that could be lost if the area updated. If that's not a concern, I might be more inclined to do that.

Nice job with Tuskgutter! I had to take Amiri (leaving behind my switch hitter rogue/monk/paladin) to fight him, and he landed a seriously large crit on Amiri, leaving her at 25% hp on the first round. Needless to say, she got buffed on the 2nd try.

Drasius

2018-10-04, 05:15 PM

While I have only just picked this up recently, I get the feeling that not only do quite a few people here not remember the first few levels of BG1 and getting stomped on by wolves RNG on the way to the FAI, the absolute cluster that was fighting Tarnesh if you didn't somehow interupt his Mirror Image or the other low level horror caster in the Nashkel inn just before the mines.

Low level DnD is a crapshoot for most characters and there's nothing different here.

I'm also suspecting that there's a bit of a clash in expectations of what the game is - it (to me) feels like it's a BG styled party-themed story-driven thing rather than a hacky/slashy min/max'ers delight like IWD.

I will admit that I'm not so sure about having the "good" side end up with Lintzi and random potions as their only source of healing early if you didn't pick a divine caster as PC, but I guess it's a good a way as any to try and keep her in the party (for those who aren't just going to hire a created character).

There's a couple of small niggles so far (lack of directions on the map, weird map controls, no merchants in places where you'd expect them, UI isn't as thought out as it could be etc), overall, it feels a lot like what I was expecting.

Starting out with a Mage PC is just as horrible as I remember, but I knew/suspected that going in, so I'm not surprised nor going to hold it against the game because that's just how it is and despite not being familiar with the differences between pathfinder and "normal" DnD, I've played enough low level mages to not have it be a major issue (yet).

Maybe after I've played a bit more, things will become an issue, but that'll be a while due to work being busy over the next month or so, and it might even be patched out by then, but I must say that I haven't had the issues that others have had to the same degree (though I am playing on "normal" difficulty).

GloatingSwine

2018-10-04, 05:31 PM

Narkis

2018-10-04, 05:51 PM

Firechanter

2018-10-04, 07:30 PM

Low level DnD is a crapshoot for most characters and there's nothing different here.

Yup. I hate the lowest levels in any D&D. It's just so swingy and entirely luck-based. Generally I prefer starting at level 3 to 5, depending on the campaign.

I'm also suspecting that there's a bit of a clash in expectations of what the game is - it (to me) feels like it's a BG styled party-themed story-driven thing rather than a hacky/slashy min/max'ers delight like IWD.

Well, as someone up there said, it seems that the dev team was in two minds about the focus itself, respectively one half wanted to make it a story game and the other a hard nut to crack, and that's how we ended up with an oversized-weapon wielding weak Barbarian and a Tower Shield Specialist vs +15 / AC35 murderfaces.

I will admit that I'm not so sure about having the "good" side end up with Lintzi and random potions as their only source of healing early if you didn't pick a divine caster as PC, but I guess it's a good a way as any to try and keep her in the party (for those who aren't just going to hire a created character).

Yeah, actually that was the main reason for me to redo my moral choices with my Paladin and take the Chaotic option so that I at least get a Cleric.

Starting out with a Mage PC is just as horrible as I remember, but I knew/suspected that going in, so I'm not surprised nor going to hold it against the game because that's just how it is and despite not being familiar with the differences between pathfinder and "normal" DnD, I've played enough low level mages to not have it be a major issue (yet).

Just ftr, in Neverwinter Nights 1+2 standard campaigns, with their extremely lax resting mechanics (full recharge in 6 seconds), starting out with a Wizard was really easy. ;)

Though one thing that might be causing the difficulty issue is that the lowest difficulty is core rules pathfinder, and on any increased difficulty gives the enemies +2 to both ability bonuses and derived stats which stack. (So the enemy get +2 Dex bonus and +2 AC for a total +4 AC per difficulty, and the same to hit and damage and saves and so on) .

Ah, is that the formula? I only ever check the enemy stats on the tougher solos, and as long as these end up around AC20, I'm not overly concerned. (I play Custom, based on Challenging but with "Normal Enemies")
Of course I do notice that e.g. the Bandits are considerably tougher here than in the AP. The AP Bandits were a sad joke however; Level 1 Warriors with iirc PB15 unoptimized Stats. Also most other AP encounters are nursery-level easy. Like, four kobolds guarding the Radish patch is too difficult, they are _sickened_ kobolds. Tuskgutter is an "advanced boar" with a raving 22 HP. And so on.
However, we need to remember that the Kingmaker AP is from the early era of Pathfinder, when Paizo still advocated PB15 player characters. So maybe it was balanced then, at a much lower level than we expect today.

--

Update:
for the time being, I swapped out Amiri for Valerie, actually, because I wanted an "anchor" on the battlefield. So I skilled her fully for AC with Focus feats. Since she's too bloody stupid to qualify for Combat Expertise. Because that would actually have been useful. -.- Anyway, so now on Level 3 and with a Heavy shield instead of a frickin door, she sports an AC24 (I bought her Oleg's Half-Plate). She doesn't need to hit because I have my own characters for that. Technically I could even let her have her precious Tower Shield if that friggin thing didn't weigh a ton. The sad thing is that Valerie's weaknesses result in Linzi getting encumbered and slowed down to 15'. And then Valerie does what Fighters do when an enemy caster spams Scare: she runs. And suddenly Linzi is the front line.
*golf clap*

Anyway, she'll never shine, but she only needs to hold out until level 5. Then I'll replace her with a zookeeper and outsource the tanking business to Summons and a pet.

On the plus side, I'm actually mildly impressed with Tristian. Only just discovered that he can hand out single-target single-round +2-buffs unlimited times. So that makes a lot more sense than shooting a crossbow at +3 for 1d8 damage. xD I just haven't figured out yet what I'm supposed to do about his AC. Any suggestions?

RazorChain

2018-10-04, 07:48 PM

Started a new game with only mercs. Used money cheat so I could hire them for that ridiculous price.

Main char

Draco

Angel kin Scaled Fist Monk.
Needed the stat boost because he's stat depenent

Role: Back line trashing mage slayer.

Will take 2 levels of Paladin to give him godly saves. Run behind enemy frontline to take out the trash.

Vivianne

Asimaar Vivisectionist Alchemist

Role: flanking damage dealer

Have her two weapon fighting with a buckler. Damage is going to be dependent on her sneak attacks anyway. This way she'll be tanky as well with her buffs

Storm

Human sorceress blue dragon liniage.

Role: blaster

Simple, just blast away.

Ragnar Ironhammer

Dwarven Cleric Crusader of Torag
Artificer and Protection Domains

Role: Tank, support and healing

HAMMERTIME!

Roland

Human fighter

Role: Tank

Mostly he' stand there occupying the enemy melee with his sword and board so the others can sneak attack.

The I have Octavia as an Arcane trickster for those sweet ranged touch sneak attacks and other wizardry stuff.

So far I have been breezing through the 1st chaptet

tonberrian

2018-10-04, 08:33 PM

How easy is it to mod this game? Is it possible to mod the premades into non-idiocy?

This might be a purchase-defining answer for me.

Drasius

2018-10-04, 09:24 PM

Just ftr, in Neverwinter Nights 1+2 standard campaigns, with their extremely lax resting mechanics (full recharge in 6 seconds), starting out with a Wizard was really easy. ;)

Depends on how much you cheesed the resting mechanics I guess. I never felt the need to and encounters were still fairly easy with only tactical usage of spells. The 5 minute workday was already dumb, I have no idea why they thought that doubling down on that garbage would be a good idea. Each to their own though, I guess it let powergamers have their shenanigans while allowing for the RP'ers to do their thing too, so maybe it was the right call?

RazorChain

2018-10-04, 09:57 PM

How easy is it to mod this game? Is it possible to mod the premades into non-idiocy?

This might be a purchase-defining answer for me.

There is a character editor but atm you can only edit stats

Renegade Paladin

2018-10-04, 10:38 PM

So... my barony up and collapsed with no explanation a couple of weeks after I defeated the trolls. There were no failed events, and no vital kingdom stats anywhere near zero; the final report tells me nothing and I can't figure it out. I did take longer defeating the trolls than I probably should have, getting bogged down in sidequests, but I did put the kibosh on them and have no idea what's destroying the state. It's weird.

This happened while skipping a couple of weeks in the kingdom management interface to try to get to the end of some events. I've reloaded a save and am going adventuring to try and finish some quests to see if that helps. Also, most of my party has a boatload of negative levels and I can't find more than one thing of diamond dust; restoration requires two per casting. Anyone know where I can find any?

Seerow

2018-10-04, 11:00 PM

So lots of people talking about the core gameplay and difficulty/character customization... but how is the Kingdom Management minigame? Renegade Paladin's post is the first I think I've even seen it mentioned. Does that mean the Kingdom is kind of a background mechanic you don't do much with, or is it just a case where most people are still in the early stages of the game before you get to found your kingdom?

Sloanzilla

2018-10-04, 11:39 PM

It's grown on me- I'm having fun and enjoying the challenges. But there are a lot of "WTF are they thinking?" moments. If I ever went to a gaming table with some of the stuff thrown at my party of level 3's- I'd have left. Can I design a super party that can beat it? Sure, but still- wtf

Stuebi

2018-10-04, 11:48 PM

Respectfully, comparing this to BG1 is an insult to the latter. Baldurs Gate hat completely useable Characters with which the game could absolutely be completed. And yes, in BG1 there were Encounters that could be nightmarish... but you had the freedom to just go somewhere else, get some more Levels and Gear, and then come back for a fair fight.

Kingmaker lacks that, not only because there is a time limit imposed on you. And because Fights are hard for the wrong reasons. Firechanter touched on it, but there are some party comps that break the games curve over it's knee with a dry crack. A friend of mine is playing a mostly ranged party very focused on just getting higher hitchances (Because even small bonuses like 5-10% extra to hit are a MASSIVE deal in a system like this), and he's been steamrolling the game on Hard. And I can't do nearly as well with a balanced party, and forget about it using the pre-created characters.

Now, the game is actually enjoyable either: if you just play it on easy with the default charas. Yes, it lacks challenge. But generally, I enjoy the writing and plot enough that I don't mind. And the system/balance doesn't provide a satisfying curve anyway.

Or you just cheat yourself enough Gold for a self-created party at Olegs and make companions that are actually, you know, competent. I was able to leave the game on normal and make decent progress. The difficulty still snaps back and forth like a Tuna, but it feels like I have a fair shot even at the harder encounters.

Just to highlight this again: DO backup your saves, and just make a habit of doing save rotation. The game keeps eating random saves. Not often enough to drive me insane, but still so frequently that it will eat hours of your progress if you don't rotate properly.

Firechanter

2018-10-05, 05:17 AM

How easy is it to mod this game? Is it possible to mod the premades into non-idiocy?

This might be a purchase-defining answer for me.

There is a character editor but atm you can only edit stats

That might actually be worth trying. Editing stats can already go a long way - shift some of Valerie's CON or CHA into INT so that she can take Combat Expertise, and maybe up the Str a bit so she can carry her own weight. Move some of Octavia's CHA to CON so she doesn't fall over from a mosquito sting. Give Harrim more DEX so he can function in the front line. Redo Amiri's stats entirely. xD

You might also try to edit the savegame to reset companions' level to 1 and do the levelups yourself (say, for Octavia), but I have no idea if that would crash the game.

You'll still be stuck with their abysmal 1st level choices, like Harrim's Domains or Val's Archetype and burning a feat for EWP, or Octavia being a Half-Elf in the first place, and so on and so forth... but they wouldn't be quite that terrible gimps and you might actually play the campaign with them.

It would also be nice if the game allowed us to write some text for Mercs. I mean, if they are included in the loading screen rotation, there should also be a way to tell something about them, rather than just showing their portrait, their name and a blank slate.

Tome

2018-10-05, 07:33 AM

Also, most of my party has a boatload of negative levels and I can't find more than one thing of diamond dust; restoration requires two per casting. Anyone know where I can find any?

Jhod, the cleric guy, should sell scrolls of it. They don't need the diamond dust, and he'll cast them himself if you have no party members who can.

Firechanter

2018-10-05, 10:19 AM

And Jhod also sells diamond dust, for that matter.

Jackaccount

2018-10-05, 06:00 PM

Does anyone know if there are any prestige classes that grant attribute/skill bonuses other than dragon disciple? I'm planning on making an archaeologist dragon disciple skill monkey.

Firechanter

2018-10-05, 06:18 PM

Today, I got my current party up to level 4. It's really noticeable how the gameplay improves when you can't get oneshotted out of clear air at any moment, and your characters slowly develop a level of competence where not everything is just blind luck anymore.
Story-wise, I think it's a bit of a shame that Lawful Good characters of all people cannot take a peaceful approach at the Old Sycamore. :( You have to declare hostilities to either Mites or Kobolds or both. Conversely, as an Evil character you can cross and double-cross so many NPCs you probably get 3x as much loot out of the quests than a Goodie would.

After clearing out the Old Sycamore (I left around 300lbs of loot behind for later pickup), I explored some more and got to another wilderness site, where I met a Greater Weretiger. Sounds quite formidable, but it's remarkable how swiftly my Paladin made him roll over like a kitten. Took 2 or 3 rounds, I suppose.

concerning Companions:
I gave Valerie a Monk level. Even though she can't use most of the class features, you do gain a prereq-free bonus feat, some saves and better skills, so you lose absolutely nothing from her stepping away from Fighter. I picked Crane Style to boost her defense. Now with the +1 Half Plate you find, Armour Training, various AC feats and Crane Style, her effective AC should be around 29 with the Heavy Shield. I guess that's gonna be good enough for now.

At long last, Octavia also got to 4th and finally gets her level 2 spells. Now there are actually some tough choices. Web is pretty much a given, but what to take as 2nd pick? Several good candidates:
- Acid Arrow -- to lock down enemy casters more reliably.
- Blur -- statistically, every fifth attack on your frontliner should be negated. And they should be immune to sneak attack due to concealment, if the rule has been implemented correctly.
- that Fire Blob spell -- a small AoE, no To Hit Roll and still some Ongoing damage, might be even better depending than Acid Arrow on the range.
- Invisibility -- some sneaky scouting and looting before the actual fight? Might be useful!
- Mirror Image -- normally a must-have, but here the AI is too dumb to geek the mage first, so it may be unnecessary.
- that Stone spell -- can also help slow down your enemies, while you can prep your frontliners with Feather Step so they won't mind, as opposed to Web.

Yeah, so. Six candidates for just one pick. What to take? It would really help to know which spells you can find or buy as scrolls before long.

--

Possible bug: could be that Aasimar resistances don't work properly. If I didn't misread, my Paladin got spat at by a centipede and took Acid damage - which should be impossible seeing how it was just 1d4 of damage and Aasis are supposed to have Acid Res 5.

Renegade Paladin

2018-10-05, 06:47 PM

Acid arrow. Reasons why are spoilery. Fire-immune trolls are a big thing later on.

Sloanzilla

2018-10-05, 06:59 PM

Narkis

2018-10-05, 07:22 PM

Story-wise, I think it's a bit of a shame that Lawful Good characters of all people cannot take a peaceful approach at the Old Sycamore. :( You have to declare hostilities to either Mites or Kobolds or both. Conversely, as an Evil character you can cross and double-cross so many NPCs you probably get 3x as much loot out of the quests than a Goodie would.

As a Neutral Good future Baron I was able to bow out of the hostilities, and then later make peace with them. Was this not available for you?

[/quote]
At long last, Octavia also got to 4th and finally gets her level 2 spells. Now there are actually some tough choices. Web is pretty much a given, but what to take as 2nd pick? Several good candidates:
[/QUOTE]

Scorching Ray sneak attacks are awesome and really easy to set up, and Octavia is built to take full advantage of them. It would be a mistake to take anything else.

Invisibility seems to work a little weird here, but I guess it is kinda ok.
If you run around past people, or near anything that might have scent- EVERYONE knows you are there but you still have a displacement chance.

I couldn't really find a good way to "reset" it to where they didn't know I was around.

I don't see a problem with this. In PnP 3.5 they can hear you and pinpoint your location just fine. Or do they still know where you are even if stealthed?

Firechanter

2018-10-05, 08:04 PM

As a Neutral Good future Baron I was able to bow out of the hostilities, and then later make peace with them. Was this not available for you?

Nope. That dialogue option is greyed out if you don't have a Neutral alignment portion. Just says [Requires Neutral].
You'd think that a LAWFUL character should be able to come to terms with two LAWFUL tribes somehow, but no. :6

Scorching Ray sneak attacks are awesome and really easy to set up, and Octavia is built to take full advantage of them. It would be a mistake to take anything else.

Ah, "Scorching Roy" as we call it. ^^ Normally I don't even consider direct damage spells for my wizards. Does each ray get the full Sneak Attack damage? If so, that would mean for Octavia that at 12th level, Scorching Roy would do 4x 9d6 combined damage. Not shabby at all for a level 2 slot. And by then, I suppose I'll have had room to fit in Precise Shot as well.

My Main is just some 1500XP away from level 5. I wonder if exploring the rest of the map will get me there before I tackle the stag fort. ^^

Inarius

2018-10-05, 08:06 PM

Invisibility seems to work a little weird here, but I guess it is kinda ok.
If you run around past people, or near anything that might have scent- EVERYONE knows you are there but you still have a displacement chance.

I couldn't really find a good way to "reset" it to where they didn't know I was around.

Invis just seems to give a bonus to stealth checks if you're moving around. Its listed as a +20 to stealth which isn't really that great if you don't have a decent dex and/or points in stealth to begin with.

Ah, "Scorching Roy" as we call it. ^^ Normally I don't even consider direct damage spells for my wizards. Does each ray get the full Sneak Attack damage? If so, that would mean for Octavia that at 12th level, Scorching Roy would do 4x 9d6 combined damage. Not shabby at all for a level 2 slot. And by then, I suppose I'll have had room to fit in Precise Shot as well.

Spell sneak attacks don't use the sneak attack die, they just double the damage you would've normally dealt. It's still pretty solid damage and it will wreck the day of anyone she gets a hit on, but it does require an annoyingly large feat tax to do so.

Firechanter

2018-10-05, 08:26 PM

Spell sneak attacks don't use the sneak attack die, they just double the damage you would've normally dealt. It's still pretty solid damage and it will wreck the day of anyone she gets a hit on, but it does require an annoyingly large feat tax to do so.

Um. Huh? That's not a Pathfinder rule, and I'm pretty I have seen Octavia do more damage than 2x what the acid cantrip does, so I don't think it's a PFKM rule either. Are you mixing that up with the Magus's spell combat feature, that uses the weapon's threat range to determine Crits but always uses a x2 crit multiplier for the spell's effect?

--

PSA:
The only level 2 wizard spells that seem to exist as scrolls seem to be (according to one guide) Acid Arrow and Scorching Ray. So it would be a waste to spend a free pick on either of those.

Narkis

2018-10-05, 08:46 PM

Nope. That dialogue option is greyed out if you don't have a Neutral alignment portion. Just says [Requires Neutral].
You'd think that a LAWFUL character should be able to come to terms with two LAWFUL tribes somehow, but no. :6

That is odd, yes. Then again, the game has some weird ideas about alignment sometimes. I don't see why Regongar is Chaotic Evil instead of just Chaotic Neutral so far, for instance.

Ah, "Scorching Roy" as we call it. ^^ Normally I don't even consider direct damage spells for my wizards. Does each ray get the full Sneak Attack damage? If so, that would mean for Octavia that at 12th level, Scorching Roy would do 4x 9d6 combined damage. Not shabby at all for a level 2 slot. And by then, I suppose I'll have had room to fit in Precise Shot as well.

She's still at level 3 total in my game, so I can't test it atm. But even her Cantrips are pretty fearsome already.

Invis just seems to give a bonus to stealth checks if you're moving around. Its listed as a +20 to stealth which isn't really that great if you don't have a decent dex and/or points in stealth to begin with.

I still fail to see the problem. This is exactly how it works in PnP, with Invisibility giving you +20 to hide check if you're moving, or +40 if you're not. And +20 is a massive bonus for a d20.

Spell sneak attacks don't use the sneak attack die, they just double the damage you would've normally dealt. It's still pretty solid damage and it will wreck the day of anyone she gets a hit on, but it does require an annoyingly large feat tax to do so.

I had to fire up the game to check, but it would appear that is not the case:

https://i.imgur.com/QSA2TPC.jpg

That's a Rogue 1/Wizard 2 Octavia with Precise Shot and Accomplished Sneak Attacker, doing 1d3 +1 +2d6 damage as she should. She just needs Precise Shot now, and she'll be set for good.

Inarius

2018-10-05, 11:54 PM

Um. Huh? That's not a Pathfinder rule, and I'm pretty I have seen Octavia do more damage than 2x what the acid cantrip does, so I don't think it's a PFKM rule either. Are you mixing that up with the Magus's spell combat feature, that uses the weapon's threat range to determine Crits but always uses a x2 crit multiplier for the spell's effect?

--

PSA:
The only level 2 wizard spells that seem to exist as scrolls seem to be (according to one guide) Acid Arrow and Scorching Ray. So it would be a waste to spend a free pick on either of those.

Yeah I'm probably mixing it up with the magus feature, though I could of sworn I saw it mentioned on a loading screen. I just went and checked it with Octavia and it functions like regular sneak attacks.

Drasius

2018-10-06, 01:50 AM

Acid arrow. Reasons why are spoilery. Fire-immune trolls are a big thing later on.

Doesn't the acid blob cantrip do the job just fine for that?

Inarius

2018-10-06, 03:36 AM

I have a question, when making settlements does anyone know if buildings adjacent diagonally count for bonuses?

Firechanter

2018-10-06, 09:22 AM

I'm currently in two minds about my party composition. I'm kinda tempted to hire a Cleric to replace Tristian, and basically have two or three concepts to choose from:

- Archer
- Beastmaster (i.e. Animal Domain)
- Caster

With PB20 it's pretty much impossible to cover all bases. A full Pet costs a Domain and a feat, so that is a manageable investment. _Not_ having a pet allows to pick different deities, which is especially interesting for the Ecclesitheurge, who can pick his domain spells from _all_ domains his deity offers. So that is potentially awesome.
Working as an Archer requires pretty high Dex and ideally a bit of Str (to benefit from the x1,5 Str mod to bows), which in turn means you won't have enough points for Cha and might even chew into Wis. However, an "Ecci", as I'll call them henceforth, can keep himself occupied with handing out infinite single-round Blessings (it's annoying that those can't be automated, though), so he doesn't necessarily have to do direct damage himself, I guess.

Basically I always get stuck at the same point: I cannot find out what domain spells are in the game. The character creation interface tells us nothing. The Gamepedia just offers the domain powers, not the spells. The fan-made Wikia mostly just copypasted the tabletop rules, with an easily overlooked warning that the spell selection "may not be accurate". I find the lack of documentation... disturbing. Well, not disturbing, but annoying. I hate to buy the pig in a poke.

Just noticed: the Travel spell list on Wikia seems to be the in-game one. No Fly, no Teleport... some rather weird picks instead. All in all, Travel isn't as awesome as we're used to.

Of course, it would be possible to shed light on this riddle: hack your Main character to level 17, hack lots of money, hire a level 17 Mercenary Cleric, level them up and write down all the spells; reload and repeat until you have them all. But that's rather an awful amount of work for something that _should be in the friggin manual to begin with_.
So before I go to such troubles, I'd rather ask around -- does anyone know if and where such a list already exists?

Sloanzilla

2018-10-06, 10:27 AM

New personal best! TWO elder fire elementals in a random encounter just outside of Oleg's.

Firechanter

2018-10-06, 02:37 PM

New personal best! TWO elder fire elementals in a random encounter just outside of Oleg's.

Wow.
Did you patch your game? I think patch 1.0.2 was supposed to take the nastiest spikes also out of random encounters.

--

In other news, my Paladin just hit level 5. Now I have the trouble of deciding what feat I should give her. ^^ So far she's got Power Attack and Extra Lay on Hands.
A shortlist:
- Weapon Focus - not for the +1 as such, but in the hopes that the game will change some scripted weapon drops accordingly. Any hopes for that?
- Precise Strike or Outflank - since I intend to hire a Monster Tactician who can also give that feat to his Summons.
- Skill Focus Persuasion (or Intimidating Prowess) - and then at level 7 complement it with Cornugon Smash.

But well, all in all, nothing really seems to stand out. Some higher-up feats that would be worth working towards are Fighter-Only. While I commend the effort to throw the humble Fighter a bone, that doesn't change the fact that there's not really a good feat chain for Paladins.
Any suggestions?

Tome

2018-10-06, 05:33 PM

New personal best! TWO elder fire elementals in a random encounter just outside of Oleg's.

I got jumped by two owlbears. Which would be totally fine, being a level 5 party, except these owlbears had an extra 9 hit dice and +12 strength. For reasons.

And I have my difficulty set so that monsters don't get any extra bonuses.

In other news, Ekundayo is actually moderately optimised in a surprising change of pace. I guess he beats out Octavia and Gorrim for being a remotely competent party member.

Renegade Paladin

2018-10-07, 12:05 AM

I find Octavia just fine. I use her to chuck around buffs and disarm traps, and she's VERY good at the latter, especially when they're popping up in completely unexpected places. The only one she hasn't gotten so far was the one in the first room of dungeon under the Verdant Chambers, which is how my party got three to five negative levels apiece in the first place. DO NOT go there until you're much higher level than when it's revealed to you.

Driderman

2018-10-07, 05:38 AM

Narkis

2018-10-07, 06:36 AM

It's funny with all the people reporting insane CR random encounters, even at version 1.0.0 I never encountered anything out of my league. If anything, random encounters very quickly ended up being too easy because my Paladin and gang would tear through the bandits and kobolds in no time, on normal+ (modified to fit PnP rules as closely as possible) difficulty.

That has been my experience as well. I'm playing on challenging with normal enemies, and the only fight I've found tough so far was the Technic League road ambush. I did manage to avoid giving anyone up, but it took me a few tries to find a workable tactic.

Also for those who haven't seen it, the developers have said they'll give out a free portrait DLC soon and have asked the community what they'd like to see. Make sure to vote your preference!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdlbVbzpejWIDL-97k_yZD7Te7wt2KEQqXdKPYeaWfn1UCjTg/viewform

Cybren

2018-10-07, 07:10 AM

That is odd, yes. Then again, the game has some weird ideas about alignment sometimes. I don't see why Regongar is Chaotic Evil instead of just Chaotic Neutral so far, for instance.

She's still at level 3 total in my game, so I can't test it atm. But even her Cantrips are pretty fearsome already.

I still fail to see the problem. This is exactly how it works in PnP, with Invisibility giving you +20 to hide check if you're moving, or +40 if you're not. And +20 is a massive bonus for a d20.

I had to fire up the game to check, but it would appear that is not the case:

https://i.imgur.com/QSA2TPC.jpg

That's a Rogue 1/Wizard 2 Octavia with Precise Shot and Accomplished Sneak Attacker, doing 1d3 +1 +2d6 damage as she should. She just needs Precise Shot now, and she'll be set for good.

Regongar advocates for robbing or murdering... several people.

Aotrs Commander

2018-10-07, 07:29 AM

That has been my experience as well. I'm playing on challenging with normal enemies, and the only fight I've found tough so far was the Technic League road ambush. I did manage to avoid giving anyone up, but it took me a few tries to find a workable tactic.

Also for those who haven't seen it, the developers have said they'll give out a free portrait DLC soon and have asked the community what they'd like to see. Make sure to vote your preference!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdlbVbzpejWIDL-97k_yZD7Te7wt2KEQqXdKPYeaWfn1UCjTg/viewform

Good of them.

Not something I can put any input in on yet (I just started Divinity Original Sin 1 while I wait for bugs and stuff), and haven't even installed Kingmaker yet.

But it does raisde an interesting question. In both Spellforce 3 and D:OS, I half considered having a male character and immediately nixed the idea because of a combination of the available portraits and the general body build being of the "overly-broad shoulder generically grizzled Space Marine sort of thing. (Didn't have the same issue with PoE - or X-Com 2, they had more variety and not so exaggerated.)

I'm sure I can remember something that let me choose between two body type per gender (a beefy one and a not beefy one) but I'm damned now if I can remember what it is, since it wasn't either of those aforementioned. I thought it might be Tides ofNumerara, but when I booted it up to have a look, I clicked through the dialogue in what I thought was the fastest way to get to the character gen, and proceeded to get the game start game over terminal velocity achievement. *skullpalm* And I'm about to go out walking, so nevermind...)

Where does Kingmaker fall into this sort of thing?

Sloanzilla

2018-10-07, 08:15 AM

Is there a way to enchant your bonded item?

Narkis

2018-10-07, 09:16 AM

Regongar advocates for robbing or murdering... several people.

Ah, I haven't reached those parts. I've only seen him gleefully advocate for the slaughter of slavers and make fun of various things we encounter. I suppose he just hasn't opened up yet.

Where does Kingmaker fall into this sort of thing?

It has three choices for character model, (beefy, normal, skinny) and a fair number of portraits that aren't even close to Space Marine-like.

edit: And it's pretty easy to import your own. I did just that with my favorite portrait from Icewind Dale.

Is there a way to enchant your bonded item?

You mean for wizards? The game kinda cheats on the bonded item, you get the extra spell per day but there's no in-game object to represent the actual item. So no enchanting it.

Aotrs Commander

2018-10-07, 09:52 AM

It has three choices for character model, (beefy, normal, skinny) and a fair number of portraits that aren't even close to Space Marine-like.

Well, that's more than most, then, innit, so kudos to them. In fact, three is tip of the helmet level for extra effort, even.

How's the voice set diversity, by comparison (I assume there is one?)

edit: And it's pretty easy to import your own. I did just that with my favorite portrait from Icewind Dale.

Yeah, they've got a sticky on it in the forums (and it was in PoE 1/2 as well). Actually, I pretty much always ended up trawling for portraits for all of the old isometrics. The ones you get in D:OS are a bit small and paff though, so it's not worth the bother.

Firechanter

2018-10-07, 09:55 AM

Oh man. Last night was one of those typical "just one more thing..." sessions. Originally I just wanted to do the levelup. And then hire an Inquisitor. And then take the new group for a spin to see how it performs. And suddenly, it was 6:30 in the morning and I had cleared out the Stag Fort. :smallbiggrin:
Gotta hand it to the Owlcat folks, their game is really pretty addictive.

As planned, the Inquisitor's Pet alone is a more useful combatant than Valerie. And on top of that you get tons of Summons and a spellcaster on top. The Inqui unfortunately doesn't get Domain Spells, which is kind of a bummer (I don't know how it is in PF proper, but I had assumed it to be the case). So in the Pet department per se, Druid or even Cleric are better choices due to the availability of animal-related spells. Or even the Sorcerer, who can cast Mage Armour and Shield on the beast and thus bestow enormous AC on it.
BUT the Monster Tactician's Summons are really fantastic. With Augmented and Superior Summoning, I get a lot of bang for the buck. I think it took me two uses of Summon to clear out the entire Stag fort, and a third one to deal with the father. Which leaves 5 uses to go.
All in all, I would say the entire fort consumed about half my daily resources. More of the healing department (Channels / LoH), less in spells.

Bummer: I took Blur specifically to counter Sneak Attackers. Doesn't work. I had misssed that the Unchained Rogue gets to ignore Blur and similar concealment effects. Meh. Good for them, I suppose.

There was actually quite a bit of decent loot there, especially for my Archer. She was super deadly already, now I'm keen to watch her in the next engagement. xD
By the way, her name is Belaya Smert.

Linzi and Tristian also made level 5 during the assault. Linzi gets to hone her shooting skills now, and Tristian... I dunno. Not really sure where to take him, feat-wise. Any suggestions?

--

Re character customization:
It's okay, I guess. You get 2-3 different body types per race and gender (buffed - huge - slim), and about 6-9 faces, hair styles, beard styles, and a varying palette of skin and hair colours also per race. Aasimars have shiny metallic hair, for instance. Oh! and you get to pick your clothing colour pattern (primary and secondary colour). That's a nice touch. Also, there are something like 8 voicesets per gender, but they don't seem to work right for Mercs (i.e. companions other than your Main that you create yourself, not the premade ones).
None of it matters very much, however. It is after all an isometric game, you can't zoom in very much, and most of all you cannot pan or tilt the camera _at all_, so most of the time you'll be looking at your party's hats and cloaks.

Renegade Paladin

2018-10-07, 10:40 AM

Starbuck_II

2018-10-07, 11:11 AM

Can anyone who's advanced in the game tell me if I can enchant Amiri's oversized Bastard Sword? I'm level 3 now, and debating on whether I should stick with it or take Weapon Focus: Greatsword.

Amri's sword is already +1, sort of makes up for -2 hit from oversized.

Renegade Paladin

2018-10-07, 11:21 AM

Firechanter

2018-10-07, 11:24 AM

I use Tristian as a buff caddy and healbot. He can't hack melee because of the Ecclesitheurge limitations and his awful Strength, so it's best to give him a crossbow and leave him in the back. Fortunately, between his selective channeling and my paladin's Lay On Hands, he makes my front line basically invincible. :smallamused:

Yeah, I suppose so. I suppose I could pick out a few offensive spells for him to cast and pick appropriate Spell Focuses, or just tack on Extra Channels every time. The latter is ofc a bit boring, but having a channeler in the party does save a lot of time and money, since there seem to be no CLW wands for sale. (One of my buddies found one of those as a drop, and otherwise buys all the CLW scrolls instead - twice as expensive as a wand, but he doesn't want to lug a healbot Cleric around. For me, the tedium of healing up a party with level 1 scrolls would be too much to bear.)

Also I found out last night that cooking Shepherd's Pie for dinner will boost Tristian's Channeling by +1d6 for the whole day. Came in really handy for the Stagfort fight. ^^

Alex Knight

2018-10-07, 11:33 AM

The game recommends Weapon Focus for Amiri on level-up, but there's no Weapon Focus option for "Ginormous Sword." Since it's an oversized bastard sword, does anyone know if WF (Bastard Sword) would cover it, or is she just stuck?

Yeah, WF (Bastard Sword) works just fine. Her weapon is a bastard sword with the "Oversized" quality added.

Firechanter

2018-10-07, 11:41 AM

The game recommends Weapon Focus for Amiri on level-up, but there's no Weapon Focus option for "Ginormous Sword." Since it's an oversized bastard sword, does anyone know if WF (Bastard Sword) would cover it, or is she just stuck?

Yes it's a bastard sword, so WF Bastard Sword will work. "Ginormous Sword" is just the name of the particular weapon, like the Staglord's bow is also called Stag Bow or something but still is a Longbow.

Edit: Swordsaged. :p

Tome

2018-10-07, 12:33 PM

I wouldn't recommend taking WF for it though. You'll get better weapons for her quite quickly.

(Currently I have Amiri switching between a +2 greatclub and an anti-troll greataxe, for example.)

Firechanter

2018-10-07, 02:07 PM

There's an Anti-Troll Greataxe to be had? Awesome! Hopefully attainable _before_ the Troll trouble? ^^
I'm asking because a lot of CRPGs are notorious for dropping that kind of weapon the exact moment when you will never ever need it again, so I hope they averted that nonsense this time.

When we got to the Troll Trouble bit in the tabletop campaign, I had our crafter make me a Giantbane Bardiche. Delayed our departure by a week or so, but then we ripped through the dungeon like a hot knife through margarine. :smallyuk:

One of many instances when our bard called out to my Paladin, "Fjodor, do you always have to overdo it?" :smallbiggrin: Though my TT Paladin is indeed a lot more powerful than the CRPG game allows... I would say by a factor of 3.

Tome

2018-10-07, 03:13 PM

It's called trollbane and it's just a +1 acidic greataxe for all that it has a unique name.

You *can* obtain it right at the start of the troll trouble though. It's actually on the same map as where you meet Ekundao, which is also where I fought my first trolls.

It's the ruined watchtower map, check inside the watchtower itself if I recall. You either find it in a chest on an upper level retrieved via interaction, or in a secret stash on the south side of the floor. I think.

Bring Gorrim as well, he has some unique interactions.

Narkis

2018-10-07, 03:48 PM

Amri's sword is already +1, sort of makes up for -2 hit from oversized.

True, but I've already found a +1 Greatsword, and I'm sure I'll find even better ones eventually. If there's no way to give her a better oversized Bastard Sword, there's no point to have her Focus on it.

edit: I've explored everything I can before killing the Stag Lord, and I can see some named nodes with no path to actually go there. Do they open up on their own later?

RazorChain

2018-10-07, 04:18 PM

Tome

2018-10-07, 04:55 PM

Remember that Octavia's a wizard. "All of the above" is a valid choice.

I know there's an acid arrow scroll about at the very least.

Serafina

2018-10-07, 05:11 PM

Meanwhile, I'm pondering which 2nd-level spell would be best on my Archeologist Bard/Rogue(1) to help her reliably land sneak attacks if she has to do it on her own.
Glitterdust would work, but I already have that on Linzi, and enemies get multiple saves.
Blindness can target Fortitude instead, can target a single enemy, and doesn't allow repeated saves, so it offers me more utility instead.
Summon Monster II or Summon Small Elemental could provide a flanking buddy instead, which also allows sneak attacking.

Also apparently Bards don't get to pick Greater Invisibility as a 4th-level Spell, can anyone confirm that?

Firechanter

2018-10-07, 06:11 PM

It's called trollbane and it's just a +1 acidic greataxe for all that it has a unique name.

Bah, that's not "Bane". A proper Bane weapon increases the Enhancement bonus by +2 and adds another +2d6 damage on top vs the keyed creature type. Also, the boosted Enhancement bonus counts towards bypassing material-based Damage Reduction. I suppose there's a reason why CRPGs tend to be rather stingy with those weapons. xD

I suppose you mean Harrim (in the spoiler)? Well I'm afraid that ship has sailed, since I have split XP disabled, so my party is mostly level 5 now and Harrim sits at a humble level 3.
Anyway, thanks for the heads-up! Will certainly come in handy either way. ^^

Also keen to make the acquaintance of this Ekundayo - and to see if he has anything on my resident archer, Belaya Smert. Just saying she lives up to her name. xD

edit: I've explored everything I can before killing the Stag Lord, and I can see some named nodes with no path to actually go there. Do they open up on their own later?

You actually need to discover a path leading to the landmark, probably with a Perception check. Sometimes it helps passing the landmark once or twice until the intersection pops up. But _maybe_ you're only allowed another roll when your skill has improved, I dunno. Anyway you can definitely visit all the locations you discover. Whether that's a clever idea is another question.

I've just made a wide sweep east and west to wrap up all the remaining locations. The trickiest one was that bloody Ratnook Hill. Basically impossible at this level without heavy metagaming - and most of my party was level 5 already.
In the cave, you will encounter...

...three wererats; 2 Rogues and 1 Alchemist
The entrance (outside) is trapped with a tripwire. A very difficult trap to spot and disable (DC32 on my difficulty setting). If you don't disarm it, the wererats will be hiding (probably having quaffed a Vanish potion) and they'll sneak you into the middle of next week (something like 29 damage per hit). Moreover, the invisible Alchemist further back in the cave will soon start bombarding you with firebombs, and he'll retain 50% Concealment.

The optimal approach seems to be: find and disarm the trap, then the ratkins will be visible. Also buff up before you enter the cave, obviously. Among other things with Communal Fire Resist. I used a summoned wolfpack to keep the rats from flanking my guys, but they will chew through the summons pretty quickly, so you have to be quicker. Once they are down, debuff the Alchemist with Glitterdust.

Alternatively, you can just go there later when they can't give you that much trouble anymore. The loot is pretty valuable, though, especially for Dexers. ^^

--

Other relatively dangerous areas in the first chapter (on P&P difficulty), at the time you typically get there:

- Old Oak -- manageable at level 3, but its proximity to your base may entice you to drop by on level 2 -- a lethal mistake.
- Oak-That-Strayed -- likewise. It's more of a puzzle combat, once you get the right idea and use the correct spells, it's not a big deal.
- Trail in the Hills -- unless you have a very specific Main, this will be problematic until level 4-ish. I tried a couple of times at 3, got my back end handed to me, and only did it for good at 5, by which time it wasn't much trouble anymore.
- somewhere in the southwest there's a wolf lair where you have to take care that your rearguard doesn't get ambushed.

And then of course there's that "campsite trap" at Old Sycamore, which I am kinda tempted to try out yet. ^^

Tome

2018-10-07, 06:51 PM

Bah, that's not "Bane". A proper Bane weapon increases the Enhancement bonus by +2 and adds another +2d6 damage on top vs the keyed creature type. Also, the boosted Enhancement bonus counts towards bypassing material-based Damage Reduction. I suppose there's a reason why CRPGs tend to be rather stingy with those weapons. xD

I know! I was hoping for a proper bane weapon when I saw the name too. Still super handy for dealing with the branded trolls though, and the placement seems very deliberate.

Ekundayo (sp?) Is a fairly straightforward archer ranger with 16 Strength, 20 dex and just enough wisdom to use his spells. He has the archery feat tree well underway and boon companion as his only non-archery feat to bring his doggy up to strength. He should compare pretty favourably, though may be underleveled with exp share turned off.

Narkis

2018-10-07, 09:32 PM

Well, that was embarrassing.

The fight itself was tough, but I eventually managed to prevail without losing anyone, not even Kressle and Akiros. After my victory, I breathed a sigh of relief and split my half-dead party in order to loot all the things. And then I ran into a group of bandits that hadn't gotten the memo about their boss's death. Who promptly murdered my weakened and disorganised people without breaking a sweat. And to top it off, I'd neglected to save after my earlier victory. I now have to kill the Stag Lord all over again.

Guess that's enough gaming for today.

Renegade Paladin

2018-10-07, 10:44 PM

Yeah, the bandits don't immediately surrender after you kill the Stag Lord.

Anyway, where the heck is the goblin village supposed to be? I was told in court that we'd located it and it was marked on my map, and the journal confirms as much and says the next stage of the quest is to go there, but I can't find it anywhere. And to top it all off, Kesten Garess is still missing from my throne room even though I finished his mission to the shrine of Lamashtu.

Spore

2018-10-08, 06:02 AM

Amri's sword is already +1, sort of makes up for -2 hit from oversized.

But in the long run her enchantment costs are triple that of other weapons...

Firechanter

2018-10-08, 08:39 AM

Well. Mathematically, for average ACs, the +1 Ginormous Sword delivers pretty much the same average as a regular, non-MW Greatsword. As soon as you pick up a Masterwork Greatsword, that will be more effective. So Amiri is fighting an uphill battle either way.

Narkis

2018-10-09, 07:27 AM

I've run into my first couple of bugs: The contents of my throne room chest appear duplicated, though it's just a visual glitch and I don't get a second copy if I withdraw them to my inventory. And

The lumberjacks and the dryad both act as if I murdered the other when I resolved the situation peacefully.

Regongar has also shown his evil side now that I took power. He's still a powerhouse, but he doesn't seem so jolly now.

Spore

2018-10-09, 09:53 AM

Narkis

2018-10-09, 12:29 PM

Regongar feels like a dubious choice in any group with Linzi but my MC is CG/CNish so she takes power rather than ignoring it becausse of philosophical reasons. That and Amiri is starting to tick me off right when she decided she can solo Riptooth.

Yeah, I've benched Amiri as well. Regongar clashes somewhat fiercely with my all my NG self, Valerie, Linzi and even Octavia, but I've become addicted to his Shocking Grasp that explodes people.

Kaptin Keen

2018-10-09, 12:36 PM

Ok - one word: Do I buy this, yes or no? :p

Narkis

2018-10-09, 01:04 PM

Ok - one word: Do I buy this, yes or no? :p

I'll answer with a couple questions: How much did you like Baldur's Gate? And what's your tolerance for bugs? Cause those are pretty much the best and worst this game has to offer.

Kaptin Keen

2018-10-09, 01:05 PM

I'll answer with a couple questions: How much did you like Baldur's Gate? And what's your tolerance for bugs? Cause those are pretty much the best and worst this game has to offer.

Ach - you fail terribly at yes-or-no answers.

I loved BG to bits, and I'm barely bothered by non-CTD bugs.

Firechanter

2018-10-09, 01:27 PM

Then go ahead and grab it. ^^

Kaptin Keen

2018-10-09, 01:29 PM

Then go ahead and grab it. ^^

Ok - but you're supposed to say Yes! :p

Anyways, thanks, I will. Even if I'm tempted to ask: This, or Divinity 2?

Narkis

2018-10-09, 01:32 PM

Ach - you fail terribly at yes-or-no answers.

I loved BG to bits, and I'm barely bothered by non-CTD bugs.

What can I say, it's a gift. :smallbiggrin:

I'd say go for it. It's the closest anything has come to Baldur's Gate in recent year, and it scratches that itch much better than Pillars and the like. No one has complained about CTD bugs, just broken quests and occasionally mechanics. And if you wait those are gonna get fixed soon enough, the devs have been putting out 3 patches a week.

edit: I haven't played D:OS 2 so I can't answer that. But I disliked D:OS 1's parody writing, and its tbs combat while good was not enough to keep me interested.

Tome

2018-10-09, 01:34 PM

Ok - but you're supposed to say Yes! :p

Anyways, thanks, I will. Even if I'm tempted to ask: This, or Divinity 2?

Divinity 2.

This one needs some patching still.

Firechanter

2018-10-09, 01:39 PM

Currently I'm a bit miffed because the previous patch or two have made the game worse; hoping that the latest fix is actually gonna remedy this. But how a 100MB patch can break something that requires a 3GB patch to repair, is beyond me.

Either way. Owlcat has announced that while they'll keep addressing problems bit by bit and churning out patches, there's gonna be one big update on iirc Oct 22. So if you can hold your horses another two weeks, fine. Personally I originally wanted to wait but then the hype got the better of me, and with the exception of the 1.0.6 bug I've been very happy with the game, and the worst it did to me is wreak total havoc on my day/night cycle. xD

Kaptin Keen

2018-10-09, 01:48 PM

edit: I haven't played D:OS 2 so I can't answer that. But I disliked D:OS 1's parody writing, and its tbs combat while good was not enough to keep me interested.

Have D:OS1 but haven't finished it yet - and the one thing I didn't like about it was their attempts at humor. Well, that and that the boss fights generally were gimmicky.

Narkis

2018-10-09, 02:17 PM

Have D:OS1 but haven't finished it yet - and the one thing I didn't like about it was their attempts at humor. Well, that and that the boss fights generally were gimmicky.

Yep, that's the exact thing that turned me off that game as well.

Aotrs Commander

2018-10-09, 03:47 PM

Either way. Owlcat has announced that while they'll keep addressing problems bit by bit and churning out patches, there's gonna be one big update on iirc Oct 22. So if you can hold your horses another two weeks, fine.

I certainly can.

Especially as I have (pertinently to the last couple of posts) just started Divity: Original Sin 1 Enhanced Edition.

Sloanzilla

2018-10-09, 10:55 PM

Longes

2018-10-10, 02:42 AM

Ok - but you're supposed to say Yes! :p

Anyways, thanks, I will. Even if I'm tempted to ask: This, or Divinity 2?

Divinity OS2 has a vastly superior combat system. Everything else is better in Kingmaker.

Firechanter

2018-10-10, 02:46 AM

[1] Is rapid shot supposed to be two damage rolls on a single hit? Because that is what I'm seeing?

[2] Also, I don't think monsters have max dex bonuses with armor. Scale Mail should not also allow you to have a +5 dex bonus.

[3] Also why aren't these skeleton archers giving me attacks of opp?

ad 1, no it's not supposed to be 2 rolls for one hit; Rapid Shot should (and as far as I saw so far, does) give you an extra attack, and all attacks are at -2 To Hit

ad 2, yeah that mistake is already pretty common in the published adventures. The way stat inflation works in this game certainly doesn't take profanities like MaxDex into account. :p But at the end of the day, it's something like 2 AC difference. You get shortchanged worse in other departments of the game (XP, loot prices).

ad 3, maybe they are all level 6 Fighters and have Point Blank Mastery :smalltongue:
Well, the game doesn't seem to feature 5' Steps either, which would allow you to move out of reach without provoking AoOs, so this isn't that big of a deal.

Inarius

2018-10-10, 05:16 AM

Is rapid shot supposed to be two damage rolls on a single hit? Because that is what I'm seeing?

Also, I don't think monsters have max dex bonuses with armor. Scale Mail should not also allow you to have a +5 dex bonus.

Also why aren't these skeleton archers giving me attacks of opp?

The rapid shot thing seems like a mistake on the devs part with how they designed the feat. As for 5 dex with scale mail, its possible with enough fighter levels due to one of the class features they have which reduces armor check penalties and increases the max dex bonus allowed by 1 every 3(4?) levels.

Sloanzilla

2018-10-10, 08:02 AM

I figured the XP difference was on purpose and for a reason. In the pen and paper assault on the Stag Lord's fort, for example, you fight maybe 8 total people. You fight at least 30 in the video game. Same thing with the Lonely Barrow. The Temple of the Elk goes from a single encounter to four. So you'd have to lower the xp totals to keep you from hitting Level 15 by Book 3.

I'm finding enough justification to change the settings from "pen and paper" because of changes like this. It's just not fair to your poor deceased and reloading party members to see it as the same style of game. The Lonely Warrior in the pen and paper game does not have three attacks that start at +20.

Disagree that the ranged thing isn't a big deal. Range is already overpowered in Pathfinder's ruleset, so walking up and standing next to an archer should give you *some* melee advantage.

I tested the rapid shot thing a few times and, at least based on the skeleton archers shooting me, they seemed to get two damage rolls per single hit? I suppose this averages out to being about the same, but since every monster in this demented little game has a +90 to hit, it just translates to moar damage.

Renegade Paladin

2018-10-10, 06:15 PM

Okay, I'm seriously stuck. Help? So I found the Everblooming Flower by falling through the right fissure in the Womb of Lamashtu. But when I destroy it, it simply sprouts back and offers the exact same dialogue. What gives?

Maryring

2018-10-10, 06:44 PM

Inarius

2018-10-10, 09:35 PM

Been playing the game for a while now. And beyond the memory leak that makes the game load slower and slower as the game goes on, I haven't had too many problems with the game.

Until recently.

I'm really struggling with this lizardmen quest. Ostensibly you're supposed to be able to save both the lizardmen and the kid by being creative and using glitterdust to root out the will-o-wisp but, as is, the kid just keeps on dying without anything happening after I kill the will-o-wisp. It's... highly frustrating.

It's not really explained, but the good way to save the kid is by talking to his mother after the witch. She'll then ask you to tell her son she loves him. When you meet the son for the first time tell him his mother loves him. Then when you kill the wisp, either by getting the help of the rattler or using glitterdust yourself, he wont be fully possessing to the kid so the kid wont die too.

Kaptin Keen

2018-10-11, 02:24 AM

So - I bought it, and now 25% of my group has been taken by slavers. I'm angry. Also, I'm down a guy (M/F), so I can't really just blunder in there and kill everyone. Goddammit!

Tome

2018-10-11, 02:47 AM

So - I bought it, and now 25% of my group has been taken by slavers. I'm angry. Also, I'm down a guy (M/F), so I can't really just blunder in there and kill everyone. Goddammit!

You can just kill the slavers instead of letting them take someone. It's not even a particularly hard fight.

Beyond that, I guess you could go back to Oleg's and hire a mercenary. I'd recommend a paladin, as you don't get one otherwise and there's some nice gear for them later on.

Sloanzilla

2018-10-11, 07:05 AM

The slaver encounter followup is actually pretty well scripted and can be done with a smaller group.

Maryring

2018-10-11, 09:07 AM

It's not really explained, but the good way to save the kid is by talking to his mother after the witch. She'll then ask you to tell her son she loves him. When you meet the son for the first time tell him his mother loves him. Then when you kill the wisp, either by getting the help of the rattler or using glitterdust yourself, he wont be fully possessing to the kid so the kid wont die too.

Except I did that, and the kid kept dying either way. Until he didn't for some reason. This game is really bugged.

Also, the Kingdom management RNG is... bad. There appears far too many problems right at the end of the month that are impossible to deal with because I've already got all my advisors busy dealing with other problems that show up right before the end of the month.

Kaptin Keen

2018-10-11, 11:43 AM

You can just kill the slavers instead of letting them take someone. It's not even a particularly hard fight.

I'm sure I could have save scummed through it, had I had the patience. But essentially it was a question of either not missing a single save - or lose the fight. Which I didn't have the patience for. Going to their camp later and destroying them was hugely satisfying, almost making up for my annoyance =)

Narkis

2018-10-11, 01:39 PM

I'm sure I could have save scummed through it, had I had the patience. But essentially it was a question of either not missing a single save - or lose the fight. Which I didn't have the patience for. Going to their camp later and destroying them was hugely satisfying, almost making up for my annoyance =)

The fight was very doable at level 2 for me. I only had to reload once because I massively underestimated them the first time around. The second time was Sleep on the fighters, Amiri and Valerie charge the mages, my wizard and Linzi focus on the archer, and that is that. I still had to buy 2 remove blindness scrolls from Jhod, but that was only a minor annoyance.

Still, all's well that ends well. :smallsmile:

Kaptin Keen

2018-10-11, 02:09 PM

The fight was very doable at level 2 for me.

I'm sure it was. Yea. But my only caster was a bard, my only crowd control spell a Daze. So imagine the fight wasn't the same for me, eh?

Tome

2018-10-11, 02:13 PM

The fight was very doable at level 2 for me. I only had to reload once because I massively underestimated them the first time around. The second time was Sleep on the fighters, Amiri and Valerie charge the mages, my wizard and Linzi focus on the archer, and that is that. I still had to buy 2 remove blindness scrolls from Jhod, but that was only a minor annoyance.

Still, all's well that ends well. :smallsmile:

Waaaaiiiiit... sleep actually works on things? I assumed that the HD were as inflated as the rest of the stats (given BAB and HP numbers) and everything and its mother would be out of the 4HD range for sleep.

Spore

2018-10-11, 04:02 PM

Waaaaiiiiit... sleep actually works on things? I assumed that the HD were as inflated as the rest of the stats (given BAB and HP numbers) and everything and its mother would be out of the 4HD range for sleep.

The technic league guys (archers and melee brutes) are mostly just annoying rather than really dangerous. But the sword and board fighters can take a beating, and the archers are well placed by the engine.

Narkis

2018-10-11, 04:45 PM

I'm sure it was. Yea. But my only caster was a bard, my only crowd control spell a Daze. So imagine the fight wasn't the same for me, eh?

Yes, I see. A difference in methodologies I suppose, though I would recommend at least having Linzi learn Hideous Laughter. You're making it harder for yourself without some form of cc.

Waaaaiiiiit... sleep actually works on things? I assumed that the HD were as inflated as the rest of the stats (given BAB and HP numbers) and everything and its mother would be out of the 4HD range for sleep.

Yep. I'm playing on challenging with normal enemies - AKA what I thought to be core rules - and Sleep has saved my bacon A LOT. I mean, not anymore obviously, but I can't imagine how much harder the start of the game would've been without it.

Otomodachi

2018-10-11, 08:21 PM

I had a pretty funny little moment playing Kingmaker last night.

I was pretty tired, and definitely kinda high (it's legal in my state, yay!) and got to the part where you go to that one location where you can ally with the mites in their war. I had Regongar in me party, and he started punning pretty hard.

NOT a big fan of puns personally, and since my character is chaotic evil I figured the sarcastic dialogue choice that vaguely threatens death to those who pun was appropriate. Regonar just laughs it off and the punning intensified.

All of the sudden I am presented with a dialogue option among 3 that boils down to- "[Attack] Begone from my presence you foul thing!" and I'm sitting there having a serious moral quandary, like "man I do hate puns but Regongar is wicked useful and kinda amusing but hot dang do I ever hate puns" for a good 2, 3 minutes before I realize the option is to attack the MITES. A real moment where I'm like "dang, this game GETS me", hahahaha.

Having fun playing a SLIGHTLY less evil gnome sylvan sorcerer. What? Tartuccio was an evil sorcerer gnome SPY? PERISH THE THOUGHT! Me? No, I'm cool, see I have a dog that loves me, I must be good. Nothing to see here.

Inarius

2018-10-12, 02:55 AM

Also, the Kingdom management RNG is... bad. There appears far too many problems right at the end of the month that are impossible to deal with because I've already got all my advisors busy dealing with other problems that show up right before the end of the month.

Yeah no kidding, I literally had more problem events popup in the last 6 days of a month than I had advisors to handle them. I was able to take on 4 problems, but the last 3 I had to basically take the hit on. I wound up having to save scum to see which events had the worst failure penalties and plan everything out just right to cover as many problems as I could. I still took 2 hits to my kingdoms stability though, weee.

Edit: And it appears my kingdom gets completely destroyed within the first week of the next month no matter what I do. I go from perfectly stable to collapsed in 2 weeks after finishing the monster bloom yay!
Edit 2: Seems its a bug with the quest. If you get a popup saying you have 2 months left to complete the monstrous bloom the game will bug out after you complete it and spam you with dark epidemics and monstrous sighting events until you collapse. The only way around it is to go back to an earlier save and do it before you get the popup, but I don't know if I have any earlier saves since I thought "oh two months? thats a lot of time!" :smallmad:

Spore

2018-10-12, 03:08 AM

Yep. I'm playing on challenging with normal enemies - AKA what I thought to be core rules - and Sleep has saved my bacon A LOT. I mean, not anymore obviously, but I can't imagine how much harder the start of the game would've been without it.

Not that much to be honest. I have only Linzi available to cast it (and since Kingmaker skips the "relearn spell rules" for sorcerers and bards, it is permanent) I'd rather have other spells. But to be fair, it would have been more useful on her than either Expeditious Retreat and Remove Fear.

And the bard's spell list is seriously lacking, it gets much better on second level but you only have spells that are entirely negated by a save, or are of a short duration. They could've at least given bards Charm Person but I suppose that could break some scripts.

Longes

2018-10-12, 03:15 AM

Yeah no kidding, I literally had more problem events popup in the last 6 days of a month than I had advisors to handle them. I was able to take on 4 problems, but the last 3 I had to basically take the hit on. I wound up having to save scum to see which events had the worst failure penalties and plan everything out just right to cover as many problems as I could. I still took 2 hits to my kingdoms stability though, weee.

Edit: And it appears my kingdom gets completely destroyed within the first week of the next month no matter what I do. I go from perfectly stable to collapsed in 2 weeks after finishing the monster bloom yay!

This is generally a sign that you wasted too much time. Monster events get more and more frequent the more time goes.

Maryring

2018-10-12, 03:24 AM

This is generally a sign that you wasted too much time. Monster events get more and more frequent the more time goes.

You mean by doing things like improving the ranks of your barony? As in, actually acting like a baron(ess)? Because nothing wastes more time than having to spend 2 weeks doing nothing. But of course you have to do that, because otherwise you're not gonna unlock more advisor positions that's important for those events and projects that require new advisor positions.

Also. Is it just me or are trade routes too expensive to be worth it? 500 BP for 4 BP extra per month (really 2 because of taxes). That gives you 125 weeks before you break even. At the rates that weeks are progressing compared to the plot, that feels like it won't pay itself back until after you've won.

Kaptin Keen

2018-10-12, 04:32 AM

If there is anything I hate with unconditional fury in a game like this, it's OP random encounters.

It's not even 'wouldn't it be fun to drop a demi-lich on the party'. It's just a simple caster with two tanks in front, and a bunch of stealthed sneak attackers behind.

And I have nothing to deal with it. Valerie can tank the front no sweat, but I cannot ignore the caster. I cannot hit the caster, because for whatever reason, .... no one ever ****ing hits. And while I can send Amiri to fight the sneak attackers, she lasts a single round, then she's dead. Because the 'always miss' thing doesn't apply to the enemy, only to me.

Could I build a party that could deal with this? Yes, easily. But I've decided to roll with the NPC's the developers handed me, and that's apparently a crime punishable only by death - repeatedly.

Oh ... and please do tell me again how this is an easy type of encounter if I just use my AOE crowd control spells. I love hearing that.

Spore

2018-10-12, 04:53 AM

And I have nothing to deal with it. Valerie can tank the front no sweat, but I cannot ignore the caster. I cannot hit the caster, because for whatever reason, .... no one ever ****ing hits. And while I can send Amiri to fight the sneak attackers, she lasts a single round, then she's dead. Because the 'always miss' thing doesn't apply to the enemy, only to me.

Got anymore specific info, pref. spoilered since that encounter is still a surprise for others?

I don't assume the caster is as heavily prebuffed as BG 2's wizards with 6+ spells in contingencies. But I do think they have very decent dex plus mage armor (netting AC 17-19) plus first round casting shield (AC 23). Then one could pile on mirror image or Blur and basically be unhittable. Barring a lucky save-or-suck like Tasha's or similar, you are screwed.

Kaptin Keen

2018-10-12, 05:37 AM

Got anymore specific info, pref. spoilered since that encounter is still a surprise for others?

I don't assume the caster is as heavily prebuffed as BG 2's wizards with 6+ spells in contingencies. But I do think they have very decent dex plus mage armor (netting AC 17-19) plus first round casting shield (AC 23). Then one could pile on mirror image or Blur and basically be unhittable. Barring a lucky save-or-suck like Tasha's or similar, you are screwed.

It's just a random encounter, nothing to spoil. Caster, two tanks, round two a couple of sneak attack archers plus a sneak attack melee spawn behind. And no, they don't seem to need any buffs to trigger a long string of miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss. I'm not even using power attack, something I feel is generally just plain stupid, but in this game I might as well not have picked it. I don't have attack bonus to spare.

Anyways, I won. As usual, it hinged on save scumming until the caster failed a save, giving me space to deal with the archers at my back. If you cannot make an encounter challenging without spawning invisible sneak attackers behind, maybe you're in the wrong line of work, friend (by which I mean the game designers, of course).

So be fair, said archers die in a single hit from Amiri, but she still needs to reach them. And even so, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have won if the caster hadn't Color Spray'ed her own two tanks - who didn't save, while Valerie did.

Now I've found something else to be pissed about =)

Turns out I can have a ton of food in my inventory, but if that food isn't labelled 'Rations' - I can't eat it, and thus I cannot rest. That's annoying enough on it's own. It doesn't improve my mood that I'm at the tree, and ... lo and behold ... there's dex poison which is permanent. So I already went all the way back to the fort to heal up, then went all the way back, then found out that only rations are edible food. Other food is for buffs, but doesn't fill the tummy.

And thus we learn from experience how stuff that seems obvious, isn't. Yay.

Gah, I'm so annoyed by this. It's an otherwise excellent game. Why do designers have to be such fools? =)

Spore

2018-10-12, 06:27 AM

Buff food does not sate you. What an weird oversight. I can understand magical elven dexterity salad not substitute for a full meal but some of the stuff is extremely calorific!

Kaptin Keen

2018-10-12, 07:42 AM

Buff food does not sate you. What an weird oversight. I can understand magical elven dexterity salad not substitute for a full meal but some of the stuff is extremely calorific!

I'm literally starving with a backpack full of rice, potatoes, meat, chocolate .. eh =D

And just now, Linzi wound up inside a cage I just freed ... some others from. There's no door, she's quite stuck in there. Grand! =)

Inarius

2018-10-12, 08:29 PM

This is generally a sign that you wasted too much time. Monster events get more and more frequent the more time goes.

I do realize waiting too long can cause multiple quest related monster events to pop a month, what happened to me didn't have any connection to that though. I wound up getting 5 non quest related problem events to pop within the last 6 days of the month. Then on top of that I wound up getting a bug that caused me to get a dark plague event every 2-3 game days that would then auto fail the moment it occurred. This was after I had finished the related quest chain so I shouldn't of been getting any more dark plague or monster uprising events at that point. It is apparently a known issue related to the season of the bloom quest chain, and the only way to not get that specific bug is to beat the quest before the two months remaining popup occurs.

Kaptin Keen

2018-10-13, 03:30 AM

I just found a random encounter vs 3 skeletons.

They were skeletons. In chain shirts, with large shields. They should have AC 16, meaning that literally every single character on my team should have better than even odds of hitting them.

I still get long strings of miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, and then - oh lo and behold - a god damned sneak attack, somehow.

Which is another thing. So I can sneak attack things that are immune. Is that then why my barbarian also constantly goes down to sneak attacks? Cause she's god damned immune too.

I do love, however, that my ranger brought her pet elk to the celebration of her victory over the stag lord. I call her Elka.

Spore

2018-10-13, 04:57 AM

Kaptin Keen

2018-10-13, 05:16 AM

Undead in Pathfinder are no longer automatically immune to sneak attacks. Also if your barb lacks Improved Uncanby Dodge he can still be flanked and idk if even with uncanny dodge the ranged sneak attack still should workhave.

Yes, it turns out this is one of the changes in Pathfinder I didn't know about. The sneak attacks vs. undead isn't the point though. These undead go down from 11 hp of damage. Why is it I have a 80-90% miss chance against them?

Actually, why would I ever have such a high miss chance against any enemy in any game? It's like the Viscount - only, I could neither hit nor affect the Viscount, at all.

Aotrs Commander

2018-10-13, 05:33 AM

Seems a really odd way to go about things. It would be far better to inflate the hit points than the ACs/saves, I think; even if the difficulty is the same, you feel like you're doing something.

I run my PCs (my 6-8 PCs) on a high stat system (usually base 8, 36 points, point-for-point) and often the NPCs are on a similar level (I even have my so-called "munchkin array", which is something like 18/16/14/12/10/8 which I often use); my players are not only pretty good mechanically, but tactically. And I found eventually, the best way to make the boss fights more challenging was to, essentially, give the boss multiple iterations of their hit points (and allow them to spend a block of hit points to essentially break save or suck/dies or have a save reroll at the expense of an effective negative level). That works much better. I wonder if maybe I should suggest it to Owlcat.

Crustypeanut

2018-10-13, 09:11 AM

So I've finally passed 200 hours played in this game.. and its definitely a hot mess. But an insanely fun hot mess.

So in case you guys don't know, you can buy custom mercenaries at level 1 for a mere 100g each - the pathfinder recruiter *says* she needs 500g, and you can't do it if you have less than 500g, but it only deducts you 100g. Just food for thought for those who want to make a custom party (like me).

I've gotten to the beginning of Book 3 (ended up starting over because I wasn't using custom companions and I don't like my companions lol), and the difficulty gets easier once you get past the first few levels. With a few exceptions of course, like this one treant-like owlbear. You thought the treant-like bear was tough, wait till you fight this thing. I had to turn it down to easy to kill it. I'm normally on Challenging.

Even though there needs to be a lot of bugfixes, optimization (****ing load screens), polish and some QoL stuff (WHERE IS MY TELEPORT SPELL GOD DAMMIT), I'm having a hugely fun time - I really hope they continue to fix stuff and don't end up 'moving on'. So far it seems they're not moving on, which is good, but because its listed as a complete game (its not, its more like late-stage early access with all the major content there), I'm always worried that they will.

Kaptin Keen

2018-10-13, 12:01 PM

In the kingdom game, I feel like ... I simply don't have enough guys. Is that just the way it is? I've only had one month thus far, but I've far more problems than I have advisors to put on it.

Firechanter

2018-10-13, 12:09 PM

Yes, it turns out this is one of the changes in Pathfinder I didn't know about. The sneak attacks vs. undead isn't the point though. These undead go down from 11 hp of damage. Why is it I have a 80-90% miss chance against them?

Actually, why would I ever have such a high miss chance against any enemy in any game? It's like the Viscount - only, I could neither hit nor affect the Viscount, at all.

On what level and difficulty?

I play on Challenging with Normal Enemies and rarely have a problem with hitting. Regular mobs go down fast enough. Skeletal Champions were a bit of a problem since I had hardly any blunt weapons.

I had warning about the Viscount and didn't tackle him until after the Stag Lord, so I was level 5 already. Okay, having a Paladin Main certainly helps, being fear-immune and all. Yes he was annoyingly hard to hit with his 35AC, and he somehow managed to dispel my Communal Resist Energy (or it was a bug), but still he didn't stand a chance. I simply had someone cast a new Resist Energy on my Pala and the rest was just whittling him down. The killing blow was dealt by my Archer, by the way.
Long story short, I think I needn't have waited as long and could just as well have tackled him at level 4 or even 3, it just would have taken longer.

The nastiest fight in Chapter 1 would be the Wererats. Had to try that one several times. It becomes a lot easier if you manage to disable the tripwire.

Kaptin Keen

2018-10-13, 12:51 PM

On what level and difficulty?

Level 4, on normal. Valerie fights defensively, so I hardly expect her to hit a lot - but everyone else has at least a good +7 or more to hit. Before buffs.

Now, I'm using only pre-genned characters. So they're as optimized as they are. Still, it's skeletons, for the love of god. They're CR1. Or supposed to be, anyways.

Crustypeanut

2018-10-13, 01:00 PM

The viscount is a very unique encounter in that at the level you'd expect to encounter him (2-3), theres almost no chance of you beating him. His AC is nuts and he somehow manages to have I think 4 levels of sorcerer, as the Fear spell he has he can use 3-4 times, as well as Shield and Mage Armor.

Its literally a no-win fight at level 2-3. The best you can hope for is level 3 and Resist Energy: Electricity, because he purely does electricity damage, and only 2d8 (with one occasional 3d8 attack) at that. As far as hitting him its near impossible at that level - hell, even at level 5+ he's hard as hell to hit. He's basically only vulnerable to magic missile.. until he uses his Shield spell. Then you gotta just wait for nat 20s to hit him.

Yeah, its easily one of the stupidest fights in the game and I've reached up to level 10. I understand that they put him there for a reason, but having that reason be "Oh, you saw the signs, these guys died horrible and you're gonna camp there? Bad idea!" is kinda.. ****ty. I understand it, as they want to show you that not everything is fair in the world of Golarion.. but its a big turn off to a lot of newer players.

Especially without a proper retreat mechanic in place.

Firechanter

2018-10-13, 02:20 PM

Yeah, its easily one of the stupidest fights in the game and I've reached up to level 10. I understand that they put him there for a reason, but having that reason be "Oh, you saw the signs, these guys died horrible and you're gonna camp there? Bad idea!" is kinda.. ****ty. I understand it, as they want to show you that not everything is fair in the world of Golarion.. but its a big turn off to a lot of newer players.

Especially without a proper retreat mechanic in place.

Well. I'm actually kinda tempted to dig out a level 3 savegame and see if it can be done. Basically I think you can win an attrition fight against the Viscount if your melees have Resist Energy up, don't succumb to fear and you have some healing in the background (like Tristian channeling), but it's probably not a lot of fun.
Also, while a fully rested party may stand a chance at level 3 -- typically you rest when you've run dry. So this encounter basically forces you to metagame.

Not being able to flee is really a terrible design choice. In tabletop gaming we basically get drilled to pick our battles and evade fights that promise to be too hard. Actually, on one of the first days into our Kingmaker campaign, we were camping in the wilderness when the night watch spotted a Wil-o-the-Wisp meander across the Kamelands. You bet we packed up our gear and moved camp faster than you can say Jack-o-Lantern. We were lv 2 and wouldn't have stood a chance.

Anyway, back to the Viscount:
Iirc this was the only fight where I actually switched off Power Attack. Hence, my Main's attack score was composed as follows:
5 Level + 4 Str + 1 Weapon + 2 Inspire Courage + 2 Flanking + 4 Smite Evil + 1 Divine Bond = +19 vs AC 35 -> 25% hit chance. I could have boosted that significantly by more micromanaging -- in fact 50% hit chance is entirely doable at level 5 if you really want it.

Crustypeanut

2018-10-13, 02:34 PM

I mean, he's not a required fight by any means. I comfortably skipped him in my current playthrough (now level 8) without losing out on anything important. Theres enough Exp, even with sharing on and 5 custom party members, and its not like there's an achievement for killing him. I've killed enough will-o-wisps now that they're not really much of a threat anyways, so even he wouldn't stand much of a chance (although his stupid AC would be a bit of a bother). So i mean, if you want to kill him early on go right ahead, but imo he's not worth the time.

Also, did you know you can trip wisps in this game? I was laughing my ass off when I found this out. I accidentally left my fighter's trip on auto-cast and then I saw the wisp go down without dying - he tripped the little blighter. Not Viscount mind you, but just a random War Wisp.

Maryring

2018-10-13, 05:06 PM

The Viscount has an AC of 39. At least that's what he had in my game which was played on Normal. Honestly though, the biggest problem I have with the Viscount is twofold. The first is that the lore check that reveals him speak about burns, which, when you pass such a difficult Lore check should tell you the difference between electric burns and fire, so even if you prepare for the fight with Remove Fear and bardic songs and what have you, you'd sensibly protect yourself from fire. And you'd be WRONG for doing so.

But even if you do protect yourself from electricity, you're still facing an enemy who has his AC arbitrarily increased half again. A wisp has a base AC of 26, not 39. At level 3, you're looking at a +7 of BAB + str, maybe a +1 from Weapon Focus, and another +2 from bless and bardic courage. Which ultimately doesn't matter While this would've made it easier to hit a normal wisp, it does nothing for this fight and you still have to roll a natural 20 to defeat it. And so you don't get to feel clever for overcoming any challenge regarding the viscount. You just sit around and wait for the 20s to appear.

But in more positive news, I find that I actually like some of your companions. Jubilost is a fun and usful character. I'm honestly a bit surprised he's designated at CN as he strikes me as rather good, but either way I find his blunt honesty refreshing and fun. I also like Amiri and Linzi to a lesser degree, although.

I really wish your response to her embezzling funds from you could be to both very supportive of her endeavour, but still call her out on embezzling and not asking for a proper stipend. I feel like I should be able to do both.

I find myself far less liking of Octavia. That may have a lot to do with so many possible interactions around her having the baron(ess) fawning over her oh so prettiness, she also doesn't seem... interesting at all. The one time I heard her say something was her calling Jubilost a slaver for having paid servants.

Firechanter

2018-10-13, 05:56 PM

The reason for the difference in AC between 35 and 39 seems to be a Shield spell. He doesn't have that one up from round 1, but decides to cast that at some point during the fight. Maybe in my case I got a lucky interrupt. Some of the other excess points might be Mage Armor. The rest, however, is apparently blunt stat inflation, as the game likes to throw +6 Natural Armour at monsters left and right.

On Challenging without adjustments, the bugger actually has 41 AC.

You're right that the reference to burn marks is rather misleading. I hadn't quite realized -- I remembered from tabletop rules that Wisps deal electric damage so I buffed accordingly.

--

As for the companions: well, so far I find most of their personalities not very interesting. The banter and voiceset lines quickly becomes repetitive. I kept Linzi in the party because I found her lines rather cute and endearing, but the novelty is starting to wear off. Okay, and since my party includes two Mercs that don't get any campfire banter, it's basically always Linzi interviewing Octavia and Tristian, so that is getting old quickly.
Least of all I like Valerie. Admittedly, I removed her from the party mostly because she's a gimp and my Merc can do the tanking job better, but her personality is so bland and annoying at the same time that I really never had any heartache about it. And she's intended as main love interest for male PCs? Poor sods!