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Pathfinder Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition - now with turn-based combat

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,294
I said the fact that the rogue doesn't have to be one of the flanking parties was a good thing, not the loose definition of flanking. Makes no sense that a character can be struggling to focus on two enemies on opposite sides of him, but is just fine against a third enemy attacking in the middle of those two.
The idea is that the rogue needs a clear shot at a vital area of the enemy. If the guy is struggling against two others who are also darting in and out of his personal space, it is near impossible to shoot the target in a vital area accurately. That is why the 30ft restriction exists even from concealment without other people in the mix.
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,328
Location
Flowery Land
If the 30 foot restriction is because you need a clear shot, why don't you take penalties to hit beyond 30 feet for ranged (not thrown) weapons?
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,328
Location
Flowery Land
Cael
Yes, and the shortest range increment for a ranged weapon is the sling's 50 feet. If you don't have a clear shot beyond 30, why doesn't a bow take any penalty to hit until over twice that distance? Why doesn't any to-hit mod, penalty or bonus, impede it unless it causes a miss chance? Is a sleeping giant's neck somehow an impossible target at 35 feet?
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,294
Cael
Yes, and the shortest range increment for a ranged weapon is the sling's 50 feet. If you don't have a clear shot beyond 30, why doesn't a bow take any penalty to hit until over twice that distance? Why doesn't any to-hit mod, penalty or bonus, impede it unless it causes a miss chance? Is a sleeping giant's neck somehow an impossible target at 35 feet?
Thrown weapons range from 10-30, depending on the weapon. Missile weapons go higher than that (50 for slings as you said, to 110 for the heavy crossbow).

It is not about hitting the target. It is about hitting the target in a vital spot. There is a big difference between shooting you anywhere and shooting you exactly between the third and fourth ribs from the side. Range increments deal with the former. Sneak attack requires the latter. In fact, I would say shooting something like that from 30ft is a stretch as it is.
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,294
If hitting a target required "shooting you anywhere" we wouldn't have non-touch AC...
When you attack normally in DnD, you are not aiming for a specific spot. That is why critical hits are random. With sneak attacks, you are. And that is all there is to it. You might not like it, but those are the rules and the way the rules are explained away.
 

Tacgnol

Shitlord
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1,871,734
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Grab the Codex by the pussy RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
Really, they shouldn't overlap in a problematic manner unless you're playing with cookie-cutting optimizetards, at which point it's easier to just kick them from the group or something, instead of coming up with ways to plug holes that would never become an issue in a normal game.

I must admit it rarely is an issue in the games I've played, but Paizo hasn't helped the issue by creating classes that can get a retarded numbers of natural attacks.

Some of the worst are combat tentacle builds that can get 12+ natural attacks a round. Normally low damage, but add sneak dice to all those natural attacks...
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,294
Really, they shouldn't overlap in a problematic manner unless you're playing with cookie-cutting optimizetards, at which point it's easier to just kick them from the group or something, instead of coming up with ways to plug holes that would never become an issue in a normal game.

I must admit it rarely is an issue in the games I've played, but Paizo hasn't helped the issue by creating classes that can get a retarded numbers of natural attacks.

Some of the worst are combat tentacle builds that can get 12+ natural attacks a round. Normally low damage, but add sneak dice to all those natural attacks...
:nocountryforshitposters:

Thri-Kreen Monk or Swordsage base, add Multi-weapon Attack series of feats. Stir with sneak attack class of your choice. 4 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 1 = 14 attacks per round. And that is before you even get into shennanigans like your friendly wizard Polymorphing you into a Hydra or adding grafts... which opens that kind of crap up to everyone.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
I said the fact that the rogue doesn't have to be one of the flanking parties was a good thing, not the loose definition of flanking. Makes no sense that a character can be struggling to focus on two enemies on opposite sides of him, but is just fine against a third enemy attacking in the middle of those two.
The idea is that the rogue needs a clear shot at a vital area of the enemy. If the guy is struggling against two others who are also darting in and out of his personal space, it is near impossible to shoot the target in a vital area accurately. That is why the 30ft restriction exists even from concealment without other people in the mix.
Meh.
In a world with all kinds of magic I'm willing to accept that archers are just inhumanly accurate.
After all, missed shots already (magically) don't damage those nearby.
 

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
14,476
Location
Frostfell
I said the fact that the rogue doesn't have to be one of the flanking parties was a good thing, not the loose definition of flanking. Makes no sense that a character can be struggling to focus on two enemies on opposite sides of him, but is just fine against a third enemy attacking in the middle of those two.
The idea is that the rogue needs a clear shot at a vital area of the enemy. If the guy is struggling against two others who are also darting in and out of his personal space, it is near impossible to shoot the target in a vital area accurately. That is why the 30ft restriction exists even from concealment without other people in the mix.
Meh.
In a world with all kinds of magic I'm willing to accept that archers are just inhumanly accurate.
After all, missed shots already (magically) don't damage those nearby.

IRL Archers can do things that are impossible on most video games.

See at 2:40, the guy hit an small target at 300 yards/275m, in how many RPG's can an archer hit an enemy at this distance? Note that on D&D long range is 400 feet + 40 feet / level, this guy will be an high level D&D archer.
https://youtu.be/Et23I9zneqk?t=161
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,294
I said the fact that the rogue doesn't have to be one of the flanking parties was a good thing, not the loose definition of flanking. Makes no sense that a character can be struggling to focus on two enemies on opposite sides of him, but is just fine against a third enemy attacking in the middle of those two.
The idea is that the rogue needs a clear shot at a vital area of the enemy. If the guy is struggling against two others who are also darting in and out of his personal space, it is near impossible to shoot the target in a vital area accurately. That is why the 30ft restriction exists even from concealment without other people in the mix.
Meh.
In a world with all kinds of magic I'm willing to accept that archers are just inhumanly accurate.
After all, missed shots already (magically) don't damage those nearby.

IRL Archers can do things that are impossible on most video games.

See at 2:40, the guy hit an small target at 300 yards/275m, in how many RPG's can an archer hit an enemy at this distance? Note that on D&D long range is 400 feet + 40 feet / level, this guy will be an high level D&D archer.
https://youtu.be/Et23I9zneqk?t=161
You are conflating spells with archery. The 400ft+40ft/level is spells. That has nothing to do with archery.

A plain mundane composite longbow has a range increment of 110ft. 300 yards is 900ft. Assuming level 1 human warrior with 16 Dex, Point Blank Shot and Far Shot, and using swiftwing arrows (halve range increment penalties), you are looking at the following:

Range increment: 110ft + 50% = 165ft
Number of range increments: 6
Range increment penalty: -10; halved to -5
Warrior attack bonus: 1 + 3 = 4
AC of stationary target: 5

In other words, the level 1 warrior has to roll 6 or above to hit the target.

High level? Not really.
 

Luckmann

Arcane
Zionist Agent
Joined
Jul 20, 2009
Messages
3,759
Location
Scandinavia
You don't have a threaten area with a ranged weapon. You can't flank with one, unless you belong to one of maybe two PrCs in the entire library of splatbooks.
There are some (mostly obscure) ways. For example, if you're a lvl 4 Distracting Attack Ranger, all your attacks past your first cause you to count as flanking that enemy (since you are also your own ally). Another way to get consistent sneak attacks (but technically not flanking) with ranged is the Assassination enchant, from the Cityscape Urban Tools Web Enhancement, because it doesn't require you to flank someone, it only specifies an enemy who is flanked. And just to make the DM angrier, it even expressly specifies that other sources of precision damage stacks with it.

3 levels in Master Thrower would also allow you to do Sleight of Hand checks as a Move Action, with Sneaky Shot, to deny your enemies Dex to AC, allowing for pretty consistent ranged attacks, albeit only with thrown weapons.

And if we're talking PF, just grab the Gang Up feat. Enemies does not even have to be flanked, it's enough that they are threatened by two of your allies. Combine with some kind of tiny or fine and ridiculously hard-to-hit familiar or animal companion (preferably flying) for extra hilarity - it doesn't need to flank or even do damage, it just needs to fly near the enemy and bother the shit out of them.

The only issue from then on involves problems with firing into melee, but if your allies didn't want to be hit by stray arrows, they shouldn't have stood in the way as you shot them.
 
Last edited:

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,294
You don't have a threaten area with a ranged weapon. You can't flank with one, unless you belong to one of maybe two PrCs in the entire library of splatbooks.
There are some (mostly obscure) ways. For example, if you're a lvl 4 Distracting Attack Ranger, all your attacks past your first cause you to count as flanking that enemy (since you are also your own ally). Another way to get consistent sneak attacks (but technically not flanking) with ranged is the Assassination enchant, from the Cityscape Urban Tools Web Enhancement, because it doesn't require you to flank someone, it only specifies an enemy who is flanked. And just to make the DM angrier, it even expressly specifies that other sources of precision damage stacks with it.

3 levels in Master Thrower would also allow you to do Sleight of Hand checks as a Move Action, with Sneaky Shot, to deny your enemies Dex to AC, allowing for pretty consistent ranged attacks, albeit only with thrown weapons.

And if we're talking PF, just grab the Gang Up feat. Enemies does not even have to be flanked, it's enough that they are threatened by two of your allies. Combine with some kind of tiny or fine and ridiculously hard-to-hit familiar or animal companion (preferably flying) for extra hilarity - it doesn't need to flank or even do damage, it just needs to fly near the enemy and bother the shit out of them.

The only issue from then on involves problems with firing into melee, but if your allies didn't want to be hit by stray arrows, they shouldn't have stood in the way as you shot them.
Wasn't there a Halfling sub level that allowed for ranged flank, or a PrC in the Complete Warrior that did the same? There weren't a lot of methods to do it, which was fine with me.

In fact, if the dramafags are so hard up on "muh realism", we can eliminate ranged sneak attack altogether. It was simply too hard to hit a 1mm x 1mm point in a moving, dodging, fighting, wrestling target. That is fine with me also.

In fact, sneak attack is just completely unrealistic. You don't hit that much harder with a club on a guy who is unaware compared with when he is aware. That is just bullshit. The strength of the blow is dependent on your strength and how the weapon itself is built and the armour the other guy is wearing. Let's get rid of sneak attack altogether.

And then we take into account the unrealisticness of magic...

giphy.gif
 

natural_1

Novice
Joined
Aug 17, 2017
Messages
1
Well, first post here, tired of lurking, poke fun at the nooob...

Got this one a few days ago and I've been enjoying it greatly. Dunno what all the journos and steam reviews were complaining about, game is challenging, but doable if you play it right. Maybe it was worse before all the patches, who knows...

Love all the systems and the freedom to tailor your party to suit your needs, managing your kingdom also seems fun for the time being. Combat is fun, don't enjoy RTWP that much anymore, but Pathfinder makes it pretty bearable. I'll be the first to admit I'm a fucking storyfag, but I dig the generic plot here, works great. Doesn't try to be fancy or anything, it takes a familiar fantasy trope and makes it work. I'm really loving the gameplay, I've played a lot of tabletop D&D, but never tried Pahtfinder, so I'm liking all the differences. And I personally enjoy the way it works way more than 4th and 5th editions. Been a while since I played an RPG that made me look forward to leveling up and developing my characters.

My only gripe is that I don't have the time to really devote to this game, my play sessions barely last 1-2 hours, wish I was in school again :(
 

glass blackbird

Learned
Patron
Joined
Apr 9, 2015
Messages
664
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
Well, first post here, tired of lurking, poke fun at the nooob...

Got this one a few days ago and I've been enjoying it greatly. Dunno what all the journos and steam reviews were complaining about, game is challenging, but doable if you play it right. Maybe it was worse before all the patches, who knows...

Love all the systems and the freedom to tailor your party to suit your needs, managing your kingdom also seems fun for the time being. Combat is fun, don't enjoy RTWP that much anymore, but Pathfinder makes it pretty bearable. I'll be the first to admit I'm a fucking storyfag, but I dig the generic plot here, works great. Doesn't try to be fancy or anything, it takes a familiar fantasy trope and makes it work. I'm really loving the gameplay, I've played a lot of tabletop D&D, but never tried Pahtfinder, so I'm liking all the differences. And I personally enjoy the way it works way more than 4th and 5th editions. Been a while since I played an RPG that made me look forward to leveling up and developing my characters.

My only gripe is that I don't have the time to really devote to this game, my play sessions barely last 1-2 hours, wish I was in school again :(
The early parts have definitely been made far easier, which is pretty disappointing. By the end it gets very repetitive and pretty bad, but the first 5 chapters are all great and entertaining
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
Good news.

You can disable weather effects (bag of tricks mod), there is a cursor set on 0.5, probably under the last options (others or misc), set it to 0 and voilà!

New version of the TB mod is faster (or i did something right with the settings, or both)

And even better, you can remove "fluent's face" from the game with the save editor, just tried, didn't work for the main char though, maybe it just takes one at a time, might give it another try.

Still, the game gets boring, early chapter 2 was fun, high level enemies in random encounters while exploring the east but once you get back on track, everything is too easy and too many trash mobs in dungeons (it was designed for RTwP and you'll never be allowed to forget it)
 

smaug

Secular Koranism with Israeli Characteristics
Patron
Dumbfuck
Joined
Feb 20, 2019
Messages
6,438
Location
Texas
Insert Title Here
How similar is the TB mod and ToEE’s battle system?
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
How similar is the TB mod and ToEE’s battle system?

Similar, except enemies don't move / attack simultaneously and everything is slower and unresponsive, even during your turn.
It's alright but it's not the ToEE engine, the last TB's mod version is decent though, once you get the hang on the settings.
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
Has this four hour diatribe on the game been posted and discussed yet?

Not watched the whole thing, some of his UI issues and UI bugs specifically I can definitely get on board with, but I noticed an undertone I last witnessed with D:OS (original) where the game is apparently at fault if it doesn't specifically spell out what you have to do at any given time in neon letters in the journal. Downtime between major kingdom events is also likened to DA:Inquisition's gating of content behind power currency, which was somewhat curious to me given that I appreciated that free time to actually explore your growing kingdom. It's kinda unfocused and the dude sounds like he's having a breakdown at times, but there are some decent points peppered throughout. If I were a dev I'd give it a watch just to see how he misunderstands certain things.


That guy is garbage.

His number one problem is that nobody close to him has ever had the heart to tell him he's a moron.

Edit: Look at this one comment left on that video:

Damn, this is practically spot-on with my own impressions of the game. I was also frustrated to no end by it despite finding some enjoyment in some of the stories and quest/character arcs. On the Obsidian forums someone asked how Kingmaker compares with Deadfire, and I wrote the following in response:

I wasn't a fan [of Kingmaker], and it's a massive time-sink, probably twice as long as Deadfire overall and largely because of a lot of trash encounters, artificial timers surrounding the kingdom management system, and a much more extensive main story opposite to optional sidequesting and the likes. However, I would recommend giving it a try at least. It has its worthwhile elements and others have loved it so, who knows? As to how it compares specifically with Deadfire, well... I think it doesn't. I started a second playthrough of Deadfire as soon as I was done with Kingmaker and the more I played, the more the problems in Kingmaker became extremely apparent. Kingmaker is a pulpy high fantasy power trip, your goal is essentially to rise from novice adventurer to king of an entire new nation, and amidst it all there's numerous threats to your realm and pretenders to your throne, plenty of big epic stakes and enemies, but it's all very surface-level, it's all there for spectacle and entertainment's sake. Nothing wrong with that of course, it knows what it is. But Deadfire, as most Obsidian games, thrives a lot more on a solid thematic foundation, and even at its pulpiest there's still a sense of purpose to much of the content therein, if only to describe another facet of this world that is so deeply tied with the undelying discourse the game presents.

And whereas the writing in Kingmaker frequently comes across as crude or generic, there's a life and character to the particular cadence of the Huana or the Valians that is unique, lively and very underrated when in contrast to the former. From a sidequest or side content perspective, there's no doubt in my mind that Deadfire's the better game - most of the side content in Kingmaker is lacking, the sidequests tend to be very straight-forward and not plentiful, whilst 80% of what is there to discover in the world map amounts to endlessly rehashed small areas that act as little more than "arenas" to trash encounters. And whilst the game does react to the choices you make, these are almost exclusively dialogue or build-based, and often dialogue options are gutted outright by arbitrary barriers like alignment - in comparison the roleplay in Deadfire seems much freer and more plentiful, as quests and area design allow for a player to resolve the same in multiple ways just by choosing to play the sequence differently instead of merely choosing a different dialogue branch. The freedom of exploration and liveliness of the world stand out a lot more in Deadfire when directly compared to Kingmaker, which on the other hand feels generic to a fault, if no doubt appealing on a sheer comfort-food level.

All this without touching the worst aspect, which to me is the combat. Kingmaker's combat is absolutely woeful, ubiquitous and inescapable. If the first Pillars had a trash encounter problem, this one has it three times over. And all this without taking into account that the game does everything in its power to worsen and exacerbate every flaw in the IE games' combat system as well. This is the kind of game that follows the same balancing principles as a regular combat/strategy mod for Baldur's Gate II in that even in normal difficulties it requires you to have the prescience of knowing what you'll face when and what scrolls and characters to bring alongside you for which area; and since the game is on a timer all throughout, backtreading to acquire X or Y supply or companion is very costly. This is essentially a game where prebuffing isn't just a clever and accidental workaround to combat the way it proved to be in the IE games, it becomes a mandatory element through which all encounters are balanced around - and if you happen to forget to prebuff your party for a single trash mob of spiders (which can also occur as a random encounter on the road), then good luck because you'll likely end with two or three characters sporting a massive -8 STR, DEX and CON permanent debuff at the end of it. If you think this is just a single type of creature, or just a couple who can do this, think again, because basically everything here is capable of dealing attribute damage or permanent afflictions (see blindness too) to your party - and that's not even touching on several other baffling enemy designs like the AoE paralize auras on the Wild Hunt which themselves become your usual dungeon filler during the end of the game.

Other irritating features, as with the IE games, include crowd control conditions and DoT AoE spells alla Wall of Blades, Web or Cloudkill enduring for minutes after combat ends, rest interrupts and random road encounters consisting of trash mobs are plentiful to the point you could well have four or five of the former and two or three of the latter occur before you finish either action, enemies having a tendency to be dumb and heavy on spamming single moves or attacks (case in point: alchemist enemies tend to bombard you with a seemingly endless and constant barrage of fireball, regardless of whether it's effective against your party or not (say that we've cast communal protection against fire on ourselves for example), despite also wielding a crossbow for example), and these shortcomings in AI tend to be 'balanced' through inflating base stats and abilities to absurd degrees, to the point that even a regular boar in act 1 can have an STR score of 32. It's compared to games like this that you realize just how much great work has gone into redesigning and improving combat in the Pillars series. All of which also leads me to the bottom line which is...

Kingmaker is very likely a game served best by playing with cheats and cheat mods on. Movespeed cheats, difficulty down to a bare minimum, even the removal of random road encounters, anything to not have to deal with the relentless, tedious combat in this game and nevertheless allowing you to experience the story and several companions and companion arcs which are all very decent - I'd likely have enjoyed the game way more had I played it this way and not tried foolhardily to beat the game at the difficulty I did. Anyhow, these are my thoughts on the matter, hope they're worth something.

I must now give my eyeballs an acid bath.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Shadenuat

Arcane
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
11,955
Location
Russia
tl;dr didn't find inspect button had to apologize for that 2 hours later into the video saying that playerz turn tutorials off anyway.

This is essentially a game where prebuffing isn't just a clever and accidental workaround to combat the way it proved to be in the IE games
:lol:
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Has this four hour diatribe on the game been posted and discussed yet?

Not watched the whole thing, some of his UI issues and UI bugs specifically I can definitely get on board with, but I noticed an undertone I last witnessed with D:OS (original) where the game is apparently at fault if it doesn't specifically spell out what you have to do at any given time in neon letters in the journal. Downtime between major kingdom events is also likened to DA:Inquisition's gating of content behind power currency, which was somewhat curious to me given that I appreciated that free time to actually explore your growing kingdom. It's kinda unfocused and the dude sounds like he's having a breakdown at times, but there are some decent points peppered throughout. If I were a dev I'd give it a watch just to see how he misunderstands certain things.


That guy is garbage.

His number one problem is that nobody close to him has ever had the heart to tell him he's a moron.

Edit: Look at this one comment left on that video:

Damn, this is practically spot-on with my own impressions of the game. I was also frustrated to no end by it despite finding some enjoyment in some of the stories and quest/character arcs. On the Obsidian forums someone asked how Kingmaker compares with Deadfire, and I wrote the following in response:

I wasn't a fan [of Kingmaker], and it's a massive time-sink, probably twice as long as Deadfire overall and largely because of a lot of trash encounters, artificial timers surrounding the kingdom management system, and a much more extensive main story opposite to optional sidequesting and the likes. However, I would recommend giving it a try at least. It has its worthwhile elements and others have loved it so, who knows? As to how it compares specifically with Deadfire, well... I think it doesn't. I started a second playthrough of Deadfire as soon as I was done with Kingmaker and the more I played, the more the problems in Kingmaker became extremely apparent. Kingmaker is a pulpy high fantasy power trip, your goal is essentially to rise from novice adventurer to king of an entire new nation, and amidst it all there's numerous threats to your realm and pretenders to your throne, plenty of big epic stakes and enemies, but it's all very surface-level, it's all there for spectacle and entertainment's sake. Nothing wrong with that of course, it knows what it is. But Deadfire, as most Obsidian games, thrives a lot more on a solid thematic foundation, and even at its pulpiest there's still a sense of purpose to much of the content therein, if only to describe another facet of this world that is so deeply tied with the undelying discourse the game presents.

And whereas the writing in Kingmaker frequently comes across as crude or generic, there's a life and character to the particular cadence of the Huana or the Valians that is unique, lively and very underrated when in contrast to the former. From a sidequest or side content perspective, there's no doubt in my mind that Deadfire's the better game - most of the side content in Kingmaker is lacking, the sidequests tend to be very straight-forward and not plentiful, whilst 80% of what is there to discover in the world map amounts to endlessly rehashed small areas that act as little more than "arenas" to trash encounters. And whilst the game does react to the choices you make, these are almost exclusively dialogue or build-based, and often dialogue options are gutted outright by arbitrary barriers like alignment - in comparison the roleplay in Deadfire seems much freer and more plentiful, as quests and area design allow for a player to resolve the same in multiple ways just by choosing to play the sequence differently instead of merely choosing a different dialogue branch. The freedom of exploration and liveliness of the world stand out a lot more in Deadfire when directly compared to Kingmaker, which on the other hand feels generic to a fault, if no doubt appealing on a sheer comfort-food level.

All this without touching the worst aspect, which to me is the combat. Kingmaker's combat is absolutely woeful, ubiquitous and inescapable. If the first Pillars had a trash encounter problem, this one has it three times over. And all this without taking into account that the game does everything in its power to worsen and exacerbate every flaw in the IE games' combat system as well. This is the kind of game that follows the same balancing principles as a regular combat/strategy mod for Baldur's Gate II in that even in normal difficulties it requires you to have the prescience of knowing what you'll face when and what scrolls and characters to bring alongside you for which area; and since the game is on a timer all throughout, backtreading to acquire X or Y supply or companion is very costly. This is essentially a game where prebuffing isn't just a clever and accidental workaround to combat the way it proved to be in the IE games, it becomes a mandatory element through which all encounters are balanced around - and if you happen to forget to prebuff your party for a single trash mob of spiders (which can also occur as a random encounter on the road), then good luck because you'll likely end with two or three characters sporting a massive -8 STR, DEX and CON permanent debuff at the end of it. If you think this is just a single type of creature, or just a couple who can do this, think again, because basically everything here is capable of dealing attribute damage or permanent afflictions (see blindness too) to your party - and that's not even touching on several other baffling enemy designs like the AoE paralize auras on the Wild Hunt which themselves become your usual dungeon filler during the end of the game.

Other irritating features, as with the IE games, include crowd control conditions and DoT AoE spells alla Wall of Blades, Web or Cloudkill enduring for minutes after combat ends, rest interrupts and random road encounters consisting of trash mobs are plentiful to the point you could well have four or five of the former and two or three of the latter occur before you finish either action, enemies having a tendency to be dumb and heavy on spamming single moves or attacks (case in point: alchemist enemies tend to bombard you with a seemingly endless and constant barrage of fireball, regardless of whether it's effective against your party or not (say that we've cast communal protection against fire on ourselves for example), despite also wielding a crossbow for example), and these shortcomings in AI tend to be 'balanced' through inflating base stats and abilities to absurd degrees, to the point that even a regular boar in act 1 can have an STR score of 32. It's compared to games like this that you realize just how much great work has gone into redesigning and improving combat in the Pillars series. All of which also leads me to the bottom line which is...

Kingmaker is very likely a game served best by playing with cheats and cheat mods on. Movespeed cheats, difficulty down to a bare minimum, even the removal of random road encounters, anything to not have to deal with the relentless, tedious combat in this game and nevertheless allowing you to experience the story and several companions and companion arcs which are all very decent - I'd likely have enjoyed the game way more had I played it this way and not tried foolhardily to beat the game at the difficulty I did. Anyhow, these are my thoughts on the matter, hope they're worth something.

I must now give my eyeballs an acid bath.


I found this short comment to be much more insightful about this blithering retard:
"35 restoration potions? Delay poison, communal. Damnit man, you had two clerics. Read the descriptions of their spells) Edit: oh god, all those scrolls too... So... Easily... Avoidable..."
Followed by:
"it hurt to watch that debacle unfold. READ. YOUR. SPELLS."

:deathclaw:
 

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