KickStarter Knights of the Chalice 2 Thread - Augury of Chaos

[Darth Canoli]

Ok, new party, Archmage but no gold/level up and feats every other level.

I'm going with:
Cleric/Bishop Moon elf (M) Wis 20, low str/int/dex, high CON and CHA (Flux domain +? if Cleric, + life, curing, magic, mysticism and ? if Bishop), the heal-bot.
Paladin Human Argossian M, Max STR, CHA, the dragon's bane.
Fighter
Barbarian, skewerman.
Gladiator
Psychic Warrior, the grappler (eats Spider Queens for breakfast)
Storm Warrior (companion), the (quick)sandman.
Pizarra (Warlock), the nuke-bot.

I just need to figure some things out for chapter 4, maybe the cleric is better so i get earthquake...

 

[Serus]

There's also a lot of debuffs which are "cured by death" so getting a helpless character killed can even be useful if you're not losing xp.

Winning by dying. Nice.

 

[Desiderius]

Argossian is made for Bishop. You want the CHR (and the Feats since no bonus). Turning activations are half your action economy whether you use them for turning or Domain abilities.

Elf is stuck with INT you don’t need. I’ve only found Elf good to get Search to 22 on Wiz/Warlock.

I think the gold for leveling is a trick to keep you underleveled so you earn more EXP. Looking forward to trying it with heavier consumable use.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I know but the pally doesn't want the extra INT, nobody in the party does and I want an elf anyway.

Besides, the Paladin will just be on support except during some tough fights (like dragon fights) where he will play the main role and use smite evil + skewer.
With so many fighters, the Paladin doesn't have to be optimized for common fights, I just want smite to hit reliably and the Pally to kick some teeth in each time he'll use it.

The Black dragon from chapter 4 killed my DK and rogue at least 2 times each during my previous Archmage run, I admit i forgot to re-cast mass mind blank before the fight and it cost me dearly.
Using the paladin with his high saving throws and bonus against dragons + smite evil will just work perfectly.

I think the gold for leveling is a trick to keep you underleveled so you earn more EXP. Looking forward to trying it with heavier consumable use.

I always stay underlevelled and earn more xp, last time, I almost cleared the whole chapter 3 besides snares and Xadriphar with 6 characters at level 8... Suffice to say I hit the XP jackpot!

 

[Desiderius]

Yeah Pal is great - tempted to try a Centaur there, I’m talking about the Bishop. Stats are already tight so can’t afford the mandatory Elf INT. Halfling isn’t awful for Bish.

Trickery/Travel Guardian HG Bish would be fun variant.

 

[Desiderius]

Favorite Domains:

Magic
Hunting
Turning
Mysticism
Reach
Banishment
Aberration/Justice/Undeath
Sun + Fire
Trickery/Tactics/Travel

Obv mix and match for preferred action economy. I haven’t done Hunting since I got better at ranged but would miss full BAB there I think.

I don’t think Healing needs the help but haven’t tried it. Could also go with the Inflict/Harm package. Silence is probably also pretty good for all the free meta.

 

[Desiderius]

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Replace auteur with autist and he's bang on.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Favorite Domains:

Magic
Hunting
Turning
Mysticism
Reach
Banishment
Aberration/Justice/Undeath
Sun + Fire
Trickery/Tactics/Travel

Obv mix and match for preferred action economy. I haven’t done Hunting since I got better at ranged but would miss full BAB there I think.

I don’t think Healing needs the help but haven’t tried it. Could also go with the Inflict/Harm package. Silence is probably also pretty good for all the free meta.

My Domain selection is slightly different, mostly because of healing domains and not using Summon domains, which is something of the past, I used a Bishop/abberation on my first run and I was happy to have it but with the new village, it's obsolete, you don't need them anymore.

Healing Domains:

• Flux: Increased range category for cure/heal/harm/inflict spells
• Curing: Cure (and mass) improved from standard to move action + cure ability which also removes blindness.
• Life: Cure (and mass) spells maximized for free.

It's unfortunate a Cleric only picks 2 domains, 3 would be just perfect.

Other great Domains:

• Magic: extra spells slots up to level 6 or 7. Magic stone empowered for free and increased range category.
• Mysticism: +2 concentration. Bless, Bane, Prayer and Greater Prayer bonus +1 and upgraded to move action.
• Reach: Extended spell range feats x3 for free. Magic stone to hit bonus +2. Soundburst and Holy Smite increased range category and improved AoE.
• Celerity: Haste ability 1/day, free action.

Here's my almost definitive new party:

• Argossian Paladin M
• Firedrake Fighter M
• Half-Giant Barbarian M
• Painted Mantis Gladiator
• Centaur Psychic Warrior M
• Moon Elf Cleric M (Flux, Curing), this one is quite sub-optimal, I might go with a Bishop with Flux, Curing, Life, Reach, Mysticism and Magic or Celerity.

And probably the water Elemental Storm Warrior and Pizarra (Warlock).

After building a Paladin, I'm starting to wonder if Asharazelle isn't worth the magic diamonds, if I remember correctly, she has 24 CHA and 16 STR, it's quite good...
Not with this party though, I'll have to use a lot of diamonds to craft.

The Psychic Warrior doesn't seem impressive on paper but spending 2 feats gets you a lot of buff as a move action (maybe some as a free action as well) like True Seeing and one of his buff enlarges him by 2 sizes... Grapple anyone?

 

[Desiderius]

The problem is that you're completely wasting half of your action economy.

Just Turning with Turning Domain is better than it looks because while it's narrow it turns on in some of the toughest fights. Genie chest he just nuked half the Spectres first round. With Succubus Pal and Elemental Storm Warrior you also have a powerful Heal.

But you can also use those activations on the Summoning Domains, which also turn on your Summoning spells by making them Standard instead of Full, and with Argossian you fit in the Summoning Feats (Abberation doesn't go obsolete for me, although he's hard to control), or either Sun/Fire or Destruction, Devastation/Wilting to give you some scaling touch attacks.

I mean I guess you get a Heal with Curing Domain but Magic gives you so many spells you should be set, and you've got Herbs or whatever too. If you want to heal more just pick up Healing Mastery, Cure spells don't scale so Maximize isn't that great.

 

[Darth Canoli]

The problem is that you're completely wasting half of your action economy.

Just Turning with Turning Domain is better than it looks because while it's narrow it turns on in some of the toughest fights. Genie chest he just nuked half the Spectres first round. With Succubus Pal and Elemental Storm Warrior you also have a powerful Heal.

But you can also use those activations on the Summoning Domains, which also turn on your Summoning spells by making them Standard instead of Full, and with Argossian you fit in the Summoning Feats (Abberation doesn't go obsolete for me, although he's hard to control), or either Sun/Fire or Destruction, Devastation/Wilting to give you some scaling touch attacks.

I mean I guess you get a Heal with Curing Domain but Magic gives you so many spells you should be set, and you've got Herbs or whatever too. If you want to heal more just pick up Healing Mastery, Cure spells don't scale so Maximize isn't that great.

I can see you like it but I find Turning extremely lame in KotC 2 because there's no fear nor destruction effect, it's just a small AoE of pathetic damage against monsters which will resist it most of the time halving it.
The enemies you can dispatch with it aren't worth the investment.

And I'd love to see you try to use it on a Dragon while I'll just Smite+Skewer the beast and dispatch him in 2/3 strikes...

My Cleric doesn't even have max charisma.

And the summons are not that useful either, even the basic druid's wolf works just as well as the tentacled horror.

 

[Desiderius]

The problem is that you're completely wasting half of your action economy.

Just Turning with Turning Domain is better than it looks because while it's narrow it turns on in some of the toughest fights. Genie chest he just nuked half the Spectres first round. With Succubus Pal and Elemental Storm Warrior you also have a powerful Heal.

But you can also use those activations on the Summoning Domains, which also turn on your Summoning spells by making them Standard instead of Full, and with Argossian you fit in the Summoning Feats (Abberation doesn't go obsolete for me, although he's hard to control), or either Sun/Fire or Destruction, Devastation/Wilting to give you some scaling touch attacks.

I mean I guess you get a Heal with Curing Domain but Magic gives you so many spells you should be set, and you've got Herbs or whatever too. If you want to heal more just pick up Healing Mastery, Cure spells don't scale so Maximize isn't that great.

I can see you like it but I find Turning extremely lame in KotC 2 because there's no fear nor destruction effect, it's just a small AoE of pathetic damage against monsters which will resist it most of the time halving it.
The enemies you can dispatch with it aren't worth the investment.

And I'd love to see you try to use it on a Dragon while I'll just Smite+Skewer the beast and dispatch him in 2/3 strikes...

My Cleric doesn't even have max charisma.

And the summons are not that useful either, even the basic druid's wolf works just as well as the tentacled horror.

Lol. It’s not pathetic. Why do people insist on posting about things they haven’t tested? I wouldn’t talk about it if it were pathetic. It’s pathetic without the Domain, it isn’t with it if you’ve got good CHR. The Domain ups the DC.

Your Bishop (not Cleric obv) doesn’t have max CHR because you’re blowing it on INT that does nothing. CHR gives you both activations and DC.

Your summons suck because your Elf doesn’t have enough Feats to make them good.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Lol. It’s not pathetic. Why do people insist on posting about things they haven’t tested? I wouldn’t talk about it if it were pathetic.

You know, a lot of us really missed you here.

 

[Yosharian]

I was thinking of ditching my Red Wizard for a Death Knight. I need more melee, my party is too caster-heavy, it's just really painful having so much dead weight around at the low levels rn. The new party would be:

1) Fighter TWF
2) Cleric Caster/Summoner
3) Geomancer Druid Caster
4) Psion
5) White Wizard
6 & 7) Jorad & Pizarra
+ the DK.

What do you guys think, is that a mistake or? Would you recommend a different melee class instead?

 

[Abu Antar]

^A DK could work with that. I see no real problem.

 

[Desiderius]

Or you could Summon with the Wiz. Wiz starts with xBow prof.

Improved Energy Missile gets pretty good for Psi pretty fast, as does Improved Mind Hammer/Improved Stomp.

 

[Yosharian]

I have been summoning but I see quite a bit of overlap between the Psion and the Red Wizard and I can't help but wonder if it's not necessary, I know it will make the lategame easier but..

 

[Abu Antar]

Just go with it. It's worth it, imo.

 

[Desiderius]

I have been summoning but I see quite a bit of overlap between the Psion and the Red Wizard and I can't help but wonder if it's not necessary, I know it will make the lategame easier but..

It covers Arcana and Psionics. Psionic gets Demoralize which can be spammed and doesn’t get Summons. Wiz gets Haste at lvl 5.

Ah, Red Wiz is second Wiz, got it. Yeah that would be a slog. Cheap Empower/Max doesn’t kick in for awhile.

Mantis Rogue makes more cash and can cast scrolls late while getting infinite attax.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Your Bishop (not Cleric obv) doesn’t have max CHR because you’re blowing it on INT that does nothing. CHR gives you both activations and DC.

Your summons suck because your Elf doesn’t have enough Feats to make them good.

My first party had a bishop with the aberration domain and the summon feats.
It was good back then because chapters 1 & 2 were brutal and in Chapter 1, the tentacled horror is overpowered and would carry you through it.

Now, you get there at level 4/5 instead of 2, aside from a full caster party, you have absolutely no need of it.
Later, if you keep on using it, it'll try to grapple everything regardless of the success rate and be utterly useless.

Same for TU, the damage sucks, there's no additional effects, any fire spell does 3 or 4 times the damage TU does, and even way more when you start to empower or maximize.

Next time I pick a Bishop, i'll make use of its 6 Domains to turn him into a Paladin with more spells or even a zen archer, which could be interesting for the Hearkenwold module.

Also, my current Cleric is Moon Elf M 6 - 12 - 9 (will get +1 from the fountain) - 20 - 16 - 18(CHA).
It's certainly suboptimal, I'd rather get 17+1 CON, 10 DEX and 10 INT but I want to grab the hidden stash in the forge, I couldn't during my last two runs and it haunts me, I think there is magic diamonds there.

At level 2, he does 3 TU damage to the shadows from the village night quests and they have 2X and 3X HP...
With life + flux domains and healing feat, you can kill one with one light healing spell...

A great bishop would be life + curing + healing + flux + magic + mysticism.
Mass cure spells would do wonders later, either to heal or to kill undead.

I was thinking of ditching my Red Wizard for a Death Knight. I need more melee, my party is too caster-heavy, it's just really painful having so much dead weight around at the low levels rn. The new party would be:

1) Fighter TWF
2) Cleric Caster/Summoner
3) Geomancer Druid Caster
4) Psion
5) White Wizard
6 & 7) Jorad & Pizarra
+ the DK.

What do you guys think, is that a mistake or? Would you recommend a different melee class instead?

With 5 magic users, you'll find the DK invaluable, his aura of dread do wonders.

 

[Desiderius]

I can buy most of that. Aberrations been somewhat disappointing compared to the Inevitable from Justice. A Summoning Domain does make clearing Finchbury at lvl 1/2 (including Spiders) much more routine and adds staying power for Sword quest. Obv that's with the Augment Summoning (and optional Summoning Mastery) you can afford with Human.

Standard action Elementals (leaving Move Action for Bless/Prayer from Mysticism) have been solid and the bigger ones show up right around the time the little ones go (mostly) obsolete but yeah I think Magic Domain is probably better? There are a lot of ways to go, including yes Hunting.

Healing Undead is fine but Turning Domain isn't just for Undead and, again, if you're trying to turn those ghosts without Turning Domain you're wasting your time. Turning Domain also opens up dialogue and gives you Superior Concentration for free.

You don't have to have an Elf for Forge, Rogue can get it or any character with high INT by that point (I think, will need to make sure ). I'll check tonight exactly what's there but I think mostly more Ice Scrolls. You know you get two characters for Forge, right? Summoning a tank for Salamander makes that fight reasonably routine. Even if he burns through one you just Summon another.

20 INT on a Bishop is literally wasting 12 stat points. Seriously man get a grip.

 

[Humbaba]

How "hard" is this game exactly? Is it hard like JA2 is hard i.e. a matter or mastering the game's mechanics or is it hard as in "any party that hasn't been autistically minmaxxed is doomed because number not big enough"?

 

[Darth Canoli]

How "hard" is this game exactly? Is it hard like JA2 is hard i.e. a matter or mastering the game's mechanics or is it hard as in "any party that hasn't been autistically minmaxxed is doomed because number not big enough"?

It depends on the difficulty settings you pick.
If you pick the original difficulty (Very hard), autistic all the way up until you get enough knowledge of the rules and the module and at this point, it's not about minmaxing (through, you'll do it anyway) but rather superior tactics, knowing the tools at your disposal and when to use them.

But you could and probably should buy the game and then start by installing Dorateen's Hearkenwold module from Nexusmods, it's more beginner friendly, even if some encounters are brutal.

Or maybe start with the tutorial then Hearkenwold and then Augury of Chaos (the main module).

TLDR: Preset difficulty settings or customized and start with the tutorial and Herakenwold fan mod.

You don't have to have an Elf for Forge, Rogue can get it or any character with high INT by that point (I think, will need to make sure ). I'll check tonight exactly what's there but I think mostly more Ice Scrolls. You know you get two characters for Forge, right? Summoning a tank for Salamander makes that fight reasonably routine. Even if he burns through one you just Summon another.

20 WIS and 16 INT.
I'll never bring a rogue to the Salamander fight on Archmage, losing means game over, you need one caster (Cleric, Bishop or Druid work well) and one brutal fighter (DK, Fighter, Barbarian).
You also need some healing, a fighter (type) in order not to get fatigued after climbing and a high search DC (not sure how high).

As for Turning:

Turning: Your Turn Undead attempts deal an extra 2d6 points of damage, and their Difficulty Class increases by two points. The turning bonus increases to 3d6 at level 7 and 4d6 at level 14. You also gain the feats Superior Concentration and Extra Turning for free. Supernatural. This domain is also associated with reversion, conversion, transformation and meditation.

+2 DC and +7 TU damage early on.
I see no reason to waste a domain on this.
So what, you will spend a feat to turn elementals (they're never a problem) and dragons (I'm sure you can kill one in about 30 turns trying to TU, oh wait, you don't have that many uses per day, bummer ...)

Undead take +50% fire damage, that's all you need to know, dragons > skewer, elementals gets nuked by mages and psionicists or you eventually kill them with your fighters.

TLDR
I think you have a Turn Undead fetish problem.
I'd rather have a foot fetish problem than this...

 

[Desiderius]

Says the guy who doesn't even test. Turning itself scales by lvl/2, is thirty feet enemies only (it *heals* two members of my party), *and the Domain scales too*. I've been over all the other stuff.

Now the interesting thing to me is that I've always hated in-combat healing but after that Pizarra fight yeah it might be pretty good in which case Healing/Curing is definitely a way you can go.

Rogue and Bishop are fine for Forge because unlike Fighter Rogue can use all the Ice Scrolls it gives you. And what do you know my Bishop can even use his Turning there to heal the Summoned tank while burning the foes. Yes with the Summoning Feats you can summon a tank that can live.

In any case 16 INT on a Bishop is just really a bad idea.

 

[Darth Canoli]

We can agree on that last point but I'm playing with my 16 INT Cleric nonetheless and I doubt it's going to be an issue.


The psychic warrior is really underwhelming so far (built STR/WIS - reach weapon) and the mantis gladiator isn't very good either but at least, he can tank.
The Paladin (STR/CHA and some WIS - sword/shield) is decent, smite does the job.

The Cleric and the Barbarian are really killing it, the Fighter holds his own and the Storm warrior quicksands and summons.

Having no psion nor wizard really hurts but I'm starting to appreciate some cleric spells I barely used until now.
I guess Pizarra fight is going to be tough and the Castle as well.

I'm trying to bank xp once more, tried to stay level 1 for some time and beat the swords cave level 3, even with the reduced combat xp, I almost reached 10K before the goblin invasion but made a lot of fights way more painful than it should have been.

If a scarce caster party or no casters but divine party can win, Fighter (for wade in later) and a Half-Giant Barbarian (incredible damage) should be included.
Maybe a Whirlwind Samurai (Reach + Skewer later with a good reach weapon if there is one)