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

[ERYFKRAD]

OK, let's try Varnhold CotW.

Votes for MC?

Barbarian

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Does this game have the best rtwp combat ever? There are about 5 games with not-shit combat (including both rtwp and tb), so I'm wondering if it's worth playing for that. IWD2 was amazing in concept but sucked in execution. Is this one better?

As much as I like this game no. BG2 with SCS is still king of RtwP combat.

The TB is utter garbage as well. AI is simple in RtwP but outright retarded in TB.

One of the biggest things the modders in Discord is trying to fix the AI and shit is hard. For every new spell that you add to NPC you have to script them individually for them to use it. Rusty had an interesting point where the AI in Divinity OS has some sort of internal logic on abilities/spell usage which allows the AI to dynamically adjust which spell/abilities to use. Don't know how true that is because I don't compare playing in different difficulties in D:OS tho. Even rudimentary behaviour builder like in Dragon Age Origin is probably better than KM enemy AI.

On the other hand WotR Beta so far has a much better enemy AI so there is a slight hope that it will be much better game combat wise, but for KM no, it's not even close to being the best RtwP or TB wise due to sheer simpleness of the AI.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

OK, let's try Varnhold CotW.

Votes for MC?

If you are going to play Cotw naybe play one of the occult classes? Occultist? Physics? Stuff like that. I mean for base classes it has probably done to death in the main campaign.

 

[Desiderius]

Currently running Arrowsong Minstrel*, which is a nice change of pace. These wacked out companions are a whole different kind of challenge.

Maybe after that some depths with the goofy classes.

* - Holic of course autistically nerfed the Spellstrike, but the free Soft Cover bypass is nice.

 

[Desiderius]

Best DLC MC is STR Vivi with that Flaming Double Sword.

 

[Efe]

I remember you playing orc double axe build on dlc and it has one of better weapons there

 

[Desiderius]

No, I did Orc Double Axe for NJClaw in main campaign.

Seriously, the Vivi is great so you can get Shields and Barkskins on all the glass cannon companions while Double Weapons are nuts with Enlarge and Power Attack.

First playthrough was Ranged Bard which also filled a couple holes. There’s a couple items that let you kludge the Shields and Barkskin potions but by level 9 (eight with CotW Transmuter Trait) you’ve got the real thing with 4AC.

 

[Alrik]

Bumbled into the 3x Greater Enraged Owlbear encounter, rendered anticlimactic by RNG.

Climb up and see one bear, see that it is lv18 and has ~270 HP and an absurd AB so I buff myself to the teeth. MC, Amiri and Ekun enlarged with potions, every defensive spell possible on ridiculously squishy MC (45 HP at lv7), Lead Blades on Amiri, Divine Favor+Judgement+Bane on Jae, Hurricane Bow on Ekun, Delay Poison+Haste+Freebooter's Bond+Inspire Courage on the party.

Octavia throws a Stinking Cloud on the bear to start the fight which reveals that there were in fact two more hiding in the bushes and only two of the three are in the AoE, not good. I then notice I didn't look closer at the fortitude save other than that it was high, turns out their bonus was higher than the DC. No matter, one of them rolled a 1. MC is boxed in and can't move an inch on his turn, this is still looking grim.

Melees charge the closest bear that stands nauseated and I position Dog so he'll draw the aggro of the next closest one. Farthest bear acts first among the hostiles and looks to charge past everyone towards Octavia but comes to a screeching halt as it rolls a 1 when passing through the cloud. Remaining active bear attacks Dog as planned with a single attack. Linzi casts Cacophonous Call, bear rolls a 7 on his "weak" will save and is disabled. The party now proceeds to easily mop up the incapacitated bears with Jaethal finishing off the last one with a flourishing crit from the Rapier of Powdered Prats. The fight was over in four rounds and Dog aside (he doesn't count) the party took more damage trying to pick Mudleaves than fighting the Owlbears.

tl;dr played like shit but got bailed out by divine intervention from Calistria, thank you for reading my blog

 

[Yosharian]

Yeah that encounter is rough if you're not lucky or willing to reload a few times in order to secure advantageous rolls. With inflated stats those things are really monstrous.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Beat this game a couple of months ago, so here's a long overdue mini-review:

+ The option to go turn-based is awesome. It does make the battles easier, but on the other hand it's closer to a true tabletop experience. This is probably the closest I've come to playing D&D/Pathfinder in a CRPG in a long time.
+ At one point in some dwarven ruins, I had my thief go forward and search for traps. I then moved her back to the rear of the party and prepare a bow, had my cleric buff the party, put the fighters up front, and tactically placed my arcane spellcasters before my strongest meat shield opened a large door. I didn't realize how much I missed CRPGs that allow you to do D&D style dungeon delving. You don't know what you'll miss until it's gone.
+ The outdoor exploration was pretty plentiful and at the same time you do have some time constraints, so there is a little bit of stress as you're unlikely to be able to fully explore every nook and cranny on your first go.
+ I really appreciate an arc with low and realistic stakes and the first few chapters really capture that. Even though you're eventual goal is trying to establish a kingdom and sit as its ruler, at first you are just trying to put some order to the chaos by making certain outposts of civilization safer from bandits and monsters. The political dynamics are also welcome later on, such as when you have a not so clear choice on what faction should be put in charge of a neighboring territory.
+ I'm going to go against popular opinion and give the game's companion system an overall positive score. Yes, most of the dialogue and quests were cringe. Yes, the companion quests are broken by either being too simple and quick, or by penalizing you for having your companions fail their own skill checks, even if you go out of your way to be helpful and complete their quest lines (Amiri, it's not my fault you decided to go along with a stupid plan, then fail your dialogue skill check). But I do feel the game would have been a lot emptier without them and their inputs to the story. Honestly, though, it might have been better if the game dropped the companions altogether and just fleshed out the citizens of the game instead or had an occasional seventh NPC join your party of 6 silent protagonists for some quests like the Gold Box games often did.
+ I spent a lot of time trying to optimize my party and figure out skills and feats during their level progression. It was a lot of fun, although I did fuck up in a moment of idiocy and had Tristian become a cleric/wizard/mystic theurge instead of a Charisma-focused cleric/sorcerer/mystic theurge or just leaving him a straight cleric. The game encourages you to experiment, while not protecting you from your own idiocy. Regongar went from a character hardly used to one of my end-game powerhouses as a Magus/Dragon Disciple.
+ I really did like my end-game level 19 Neutral Good gnome arcane sorcerer. I never finished the twins storyline though, so ended up with no queen.
+ So much to do! I'm old, but back in my day you took the meager dollars you could scrounge up and dumped it into a game you could play for months. There is a lot of hours you can sink into this and a lot of replayability. Fuck today's $70 games that you can finish in a weekend and lack any reason to go back to once completed. The Slavs have it right in that regard.
+ Good monster diversity, causing me to have to change my party configuration or approach. I was having a lot of trouble against a boss battle with a naga, and on the second try I started off well, but then couldn't seem to punch through her defenses. Just when I thought another reload was inevitable, Linzi got lucky with a Hold Monster spell and turned the tide of battle. Moments like this really shine and make you feel clever for trying something different.
- They totally botched kingdom management. I was already halfway through the game when I realized my kingdom was in an inescapable downward spiral despite how well the normal questing was going. And I honestly did try my best to put resources into my kingdom's mini-events. Left with a choice between using an editor or restarting the game from scratch when I still didn't really understand the management system (and was likely to make the same mistakes), I said fuck it and used an editor. I read online that several people rage quit the game over this.
- Some parts of the game lacked depth. The quests normally broke down to a handful of quick fights, so you rarely had to conserve spells. The game could have really used more dungeon delving, which I felt was when the game was at its best and most difficult.
- Some of the dialogue came across as preachy. Having a large cast of characters with diverse philosophies and ways of living is good world-building. Having them constantly hit you on the head with the writer's modern ideals feels instead like proselytizing.

tl;dr... good game, recommend.

 

[Desiderius]

played like shit but got bailed out by divine intervention from Calistria, thank you for reading my blog

If you've discovered the wonders of Cacophonous Call you're ahead of 95% of players. Well done good sir.

 

[Desiderius]

Deuce if you give yourself something to accomplish - like getting Teleportation Circles up in time for Womb - then the KM gets a lot better, as you're then motivated to figure it out. All of the best items and some very helpful Kingdom wide buffs are also gated behind it (making time saved = better items) if you ever feel compelled to try another playthrough there's a whole nother game out there for your to discover.

It is scandalously unfinished.

 

[Alrik]

played like shit but got bailed out by divine intervention from Calistria, thank you for reading my blog

If you've discovered the wonders of Cacophonous Call you're ahead of 95% of players. Well done good sir.

When I first saw it I brushed it aside as "inferior Hold Person" before I realized that Hold Person actually doesn't work against a lot of things that can kill you really fast.

Speaking of lv2 spells, is it just me or is Create Pit not as good as most people seem to say? It usually amounts to me twiddling my thumbs as my buffs are expiring waiting for the enemies to be regurgitated (usually all at once). Will it come into it's own later where you can actually damage whatever is trapped down there (thinking of things like Sirocco) or am I just using it wrong? I much prefer Grease that targets the same save (with a whopping -1 DC) and I can murder whatever gets caught with no resistance.

 

[Nano]

When I first saw it I brushed it aside as "inferior Hold Person" before I realized that Hold Person actually doesn't work against a lot of things that can kill you really fast.

Not to mention that Cacophonous Call doesn't allow for a save every round. It's the spell that convinced me to roll a Dirge Bard instead of an Undead Sorcerer.

Speaking of lv2 spells, is it just me or is Create Pit not as good as most people seem to say?

Agreed. The Pit spells are visually cool but in play they're really just time wasters more than anything IMO.

 

[Desiderius]

The Pits let you tackle one half of the mobs at a time, or more than half in the case of adds and bosses. They’re also strategic lifesavers when things have gone wrong.

For me they’re all (including Grease and Scirocco) a PITA that I avoid when possible. I do end up using Pits a good bit to bail myself out from bad play.

 

[The Avatar]

The pit spells would be great. Anything that makes a group of enemies lose their turn is A+. The fact that you have to sit around and wait for it to expire is an oversight on the part of the game designers. The spell should be dismissible. I recommend using a mod to add this functionality. I believe Call of The Wild has such a feature.

 

[Desiderius]

It does and it’s very welcome.

Note that Pits are rnd/lvl while Grease/Web/Entangle are min/lvl. Biggest problem I have with them is my own guys falling in.

 

[Alrik]

The Pits let you tackle one half of the mobs at a time, or more than half in the case of adds and bosses. They’re also strategic lifesavers when things have gone wrong.

For me they’re all (including Grease and Scirocco) a PITA that I avoid when possible. I do end up using Pits a good bit to bail myself out from bad play.

I can imagine Grease being a headache in RTwP, but when you can aim it properly in TB it's generally fantastic. The way the enemies are placed you can usually line it up so most of them are standing at the edge where you can attack them with several characters without stepping in the shit. Additionally, the ones caught in the middle/far edge will often engage your characters from within the AoE when they make their saves, keeping them affected while you get more targets to attack. Harrim's only duty in my party was to ensure that the most dangerous target kept slipping in the Grease with ToC.

 

[The_Mask]

Arguably one of the biggest issues P:K has is the fact that you cannot dismiss spells. Grease, and generally any AoE spell, wouldn't be such a pain in RtwP, if you could dismiss them when you stopped needing them.

 

[The Avatar]

Grease is good too. The downside of Grease is that it's a first level spell so the DC to resist will be quite low later on unless you have Heighten Spell. The Pit spells get increasingly good without having to use Heighten Spell. Still, I wouldn't use either if them without a dismiss spell mod because its just too annoying.

Also, speaking of mods, if you are using the Call of The Wild, they nerfed Grease to be like in PnP where you have to roll if you move and its only a dc10 mobility check instead of spell DC.

 

[LannTheStupid]

Acid Pit is damage over time, and I think it is in the next circle after Create Pit. I am OK with watching the Cyclop's health ticking down, especially when all the damage is attributed to my favourite Octavia. At this time the fight is usually resolved, so it's not a problem to wait and then rush half-dead enemies.

 

[Desiderius]

The Pits let you tackle one half of the mobs at a time, or more than half in the case of adds and bosses. They’re also strategic lifesavers when things have gone wrong.

For me they’re all (including Grease and Scirocco) a PITA that I avoid when possible. I do end up using Pits a good bit to bail myself out from bad play.

I can imagine Grease being a headache in RTwP, but when you can aim it properly in TB it's generally fantastic. The way the enemies are placed you can usually line it up so most of them are standing at the edge where you can attack them with several characters without stepping in the shit. Additionally, the ones caught in the middle/far edge will often engage your characters from within the AoE when they make their saves, keeping them affected while you get more targets to attack. Harrim's only duty in my party was to ensure that the most dangerous target kept slipping in the Grease with ToC.

Another example of why TB is kiddie mode.

 

[KateMicucci]

He does, fucktard, and the big Centipede is level 7 and the Priests are lvl 3 and there’s no reason to fight either one.

Has no one ever called you out on your bullshit in your entire life?

I just went back to Sycamore and I was right about both the priests and the centipede.

 

[LannTheStupid]

The way the enemies are placed you can usually line it up so most of them are standing at the edge where you can attack them with several characters without stepping in the shit.

It is very muich doable in RTwP. TYL.

 

[Desiderius]

Glad you came back. Where is this Priest? The one next to the boss? I was afraid you were right about Centipede.

Hope you found your rations.