Pathfinder Pathfinder: Kingmaker Builds and Strats Thread

[Desiderius]

Ummm I couldn't take greater spell focus evocation at lvl 3 so I took spell penetration. It shows that I took the spell focus evocation feat, why couldn't I select greater?

Are the feats to improve summons worth it? Also, are the elemental feats worth it? If so, which one? Seems electricity and acid are popular.

What about taking spell focus feats for Necromancy?

Improved Initiative is often overlooked. So is Blind Fight. Both should be on most, if not all, of your characters you are expecting to fight ludicrous battles with.

How soon should they be taken?

Blind fight gives you Gaze Immunity and can also help at the end if chapter 3, but you may have access to Echolocation by then which serves a similar function.

Improved Initiative just makes everything easier, which you could also just turn down the difficulty to achieve. I like feats that increase enjoyment by bringing out the unique features of each class/party config. Only time I stack initiative is for unfair pissing contests.

 

[KainenMorden]

What do you think of the higher difficulty levels? Do you feel like they are well balanced?

I mean, atleast the highest one is called unfair so you know what to expect.

 

[Desiderius]

What do you think of the higher difficulty levels? Do you feel like they are well balanced?

I mean, atleast the highest one is called unfair so you know what to expect.

I think the fun is in learning the game. Start on normal and kick it up a notch when you've stopped having to learn. There are enough tools to make even Unfair easy but it takes awhile and a lot of enjoyment to get there.

 

[KainenMorden]

What do you think of the higher difficulty levels? Do you feel like they are well balanced?

I mean, atleast the highest one is called unfair so you know what to expect.

I think the fun is in learning the game. Start on normal and kick it up a notch when you've stopped having to learn. There are enough tools to make even Unfair easy but it takes awhile and a lot of enjoyment to get there.

I'm just sticking to normal for this run for sure.

 

[Sarathiour]

I did my first playthrough on normal with a few tweaked thing, like no complete dispel on rest and other minor adjustment.
It's recommended to have blind fight on everyone before the end of chapter 5. It's not mandatory, but save you a lot of headaches on chapter 6, especially back then, when echolocation did not work.

 

[KainenMorden]

I did my first playthrough on normal with a few tweaked thing, like no complete dispel on rest and other minor adjustment.
It's recommended to have blind fight on everyone before the end of chapter 5. It's not mandatory, but save you a lot of headaches on chapter 6, especially back then, when echolocation did not work.

Should I take it on my sorc also?

 

[Sarathiour]

As I said, no need to rush it, by the time you reach chapter 5, you should have most of the feat you really wanted. But yeah, I would take it.

 

[EdgyRightWinger]

Does Improved Initiative give a meaningful benefit in RTWP?

 

[Delterius]

Does Improved Initiative give a meaningful benefit in RTWP?

it helps in general tbh but i wouldn't pick it super quickly, no

 

[Sarathiour]

Does Improved Initiative give a meaningful benefit in RTWP?

As long as you don't got your first action in rtwp, you're going to be considered flat-footed. You can obviously work around that against few enemy by just running back until your turn came, but it's still an issue against caster or shooter.

 

[Desiderius]

Does Improved Initiative give a meaningful benefit in RTWP?

As long as you don't got your first action in rtwp, you're going to be considered flat-footed. You can obviously work around that against few enemy by just running back until your turn came, but it's still an issue against caster or shooter.

You can dominate RTwP with Zerg Charges (which use the surprise round). If you get good enough at it you can end fights before they begin. With high initiative you then follow up with a full attack against enemies that are still flat-footed along with whatever debuffs your initial attack delivered.

 

[Cael]

What do you think of the higher difficulty levels? Do you feel like they are well balanced?

I mean, atleast the highest one is called unfair so you know what to expect.

Don't bother with them. The lazy retarded devs just stat bloated the enemies. You just end up shoehorning yourself into a few overpowered builds just to have a viable game. It is why many of the self-described so-called "experts" here don't like it when other people suggest other alternative fun builds. They are all geared towards Unfair difficulty and so only accept a few rigid builds as the "right" builds.

 

[Cael]

Does Improved Initiative give a meaningful benefit in RTWP?

First strike is huge in the game, especially when your frontliner has Tyrant.

 

[Cael]

Ummm I couldn't take greater spell focus evocation at lvl 3 so I took spell penetration. It shows that I took the spell focus evocation feat, why couldn't I select greater?

Are the feats to improve summons worth it? Also, are the elemental feats worth it? If so, which one? Seems electricity and acid are popular.

What about taking spell focus feats for Necromancy?

Improved Initiative is often overlooked. So is Blind Fight. Both should be on most, if not all, of your characters you are expecting to fight ludicrous battles with.

How soon should they be taken?

Improved Initiative = as soon as possible
Blind Fight = before Chapter 5 like Sarathiour said.

 

[Desiderius]

Don't take Improved Initiative at all. Just makes the game easier without making it more interesting. Take Feats that develop each unique class/party strategy.

 

[Desiderius]

What do you think of the higher difficulty levels? Do you feel like they are well balanced?

I mean, atleast the highest one is called unfair so you know what to expect.

Don't bother with them. The lazy retarded devs just stat bloated the enemies. You just end up shoehorning yourself into a few overpowered builds just to have a viable game. It is why many of the self-described so-called "experts" here don't like it when other people suggest other alternative fun builds. They are all geared towards Unfair difficulty and so only accept a few rigid builds as the "right" builds.

Lol Cael living in his own personal fantasy world again. Last Unfair playthrough I posted was all single-classed companions. They’re good enough to beat any difficulty handily.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

KainenMorden I recommend Color Spray. I used both Grease and Colorspray to get through that fight. The fight at Sycamore that annoyed me more was Baron Will o'Wisp....with Sorc levels who can cast shield. That was dirty, Owlcat.

Assuming you're not playing with the hardest difficulty setting, potion of resistance to electricity and wand of true strike should do most of the job here.

I did have resist energy memorized. I put that on Valerie. Regongar's class feature electrical resistance carried the day though. I did make liberal use of the True Strike wand. What made it harder was having only 1 remove fear memorized. I was reasonably prepared despite it being a gut punch. I still had to reload that one the fist time I think.

There’s little reason to fight him at all. That one is a lesson in situational awareness and threat management.

No reason not use use Resist, Communal when you can (and no reason not to wait until you get it at lvl 5) outside of duration which is irrelevant in this case.

It was clear that it was a trap from the blatant context clues (badly burned corpses), which is why I had resist energy memorized (L2). None of my characters were level 5 yet so I didn't have communal. I fought him again for the challenge. I wasn't imposing Ironman conditions on myself.

 

[Desiderius]

Tinman makes the game a lot more interesting and brings the other half of the strategies/abilities into play that would otherwise be ignored in reload world. No reason you cant hold off until Outflank and Resist, Communal to make it a fairer fight.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Desiderius You're being tiresome. I did everything reasonable given the context. Owlcat did a jerk DM move by giving a will-o'wisp the Shield spell. Absent that spell, I wouldn't have reloaded. Owlcat even acknowledges it, as the game autosaves when you selected the campfire to rest and trigger the event. I'm not complaining about it, because it's game. DMs can be jerks sometimes. I thought about it, accepted the challenge, and succeeded upon reload. This isn't a teaching moment.

 

[Cael]

Desiderius You're being tiresome. I did everything reasonable given the context. Owlcat did a jerk DM move by giving a will-o'wisp the Shield spell. Absent that spell, I wouldn't have reloaded. Owlcat even acknowledges it, as the game autosaves when you selected the campfire to rest and trigger the event. I'm not complaining about it, because it's game. DMs can be jerks sometimes. I thought about it, accepted the challenge, and succeeded upon reload. This isn't a teaching moment.

Basically, the trick is to give your guys Resist Lightning and beat the idiot to death while you go get a tea. Yeah. Great challenge guys. Really makes people think.

 

[gurugeorge]

Desiderius You're being tiresome. I did everything reasonable given the context. Owlcat did a jerk DM move by giving a will-o'wisp the Shield spell. Absent that spell, I wouldn't have reloaded. Owlcat even acknowledges it, as the game autosaves when you selected the campfire to rest and trigger the event. I'm not complaining about it, because it's game. DMs can be jerks sometimes. I thought about it, accepted the challenge, and succeeded upon reload. This isn't a teaching moment.

Basically, the trick is to give your guys Resist Lightning and beat the idiot to death while you go get a tea. Yeah. Great challenge guys. Really makes people think.

What it checks for is "I don't read hurr durr" players

 

[Desiderius]

Desiderius You're being tiresome. I did everything reasonable given the context. Owlcat did a jerk DM move by giving a will-o'wisp the Shield spell. Absent that spell, I wouldn't have reloaded. Owlcat even acknowledges it, as the game autosaves when you selected the campfire to rest and trigger the event. I'm not complaining about it, because it's game. DMs can be jerks sometimes. I thought about it, accepted the challenge, and succeeded upon reload. This isn't a teaching moment.

beat the idiot to death while you go get a tea

Oh look more people blaming the game because they suck at multiple levels. Talk about tiresome.

This game is a throwback to pre-faceroll where players were expected to read their abilities and cues from the environment. The cues say :

(1) There's no quest or any other indication that there's anything to gain here.

(2) Previous parties who ignored the environmental cues didn't get shiny new thing, they're dead.

Completionist says let's try it out just to make sure. Oh Lightining and high AC, lets come back when I can handle Lightning and get my AB up.

At level five you've got all the tools you need to stay alive and win in three rounds tops. Unless you're too lazy to read your abilities and your AB sux.

Then you win and find out about the only thing you get out of it is a Diamond so skip it on subsequent playthroughs. Easy.

They give you an autosave because you're slumming with the casuals. Shield spell? Really? Why do people expect to win the whole game with one fucking first level spell??? Jesus.

Git gud.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Most people, self included, encounter this at Level 4. Even then, one has all of the right tools available to them, it's just a low blow.

Smoulderburn is a unique Will-o'wisp with 37 AC before it casts Shield (+4). Shield protects it from the singular spell it is not immune to. It has 124 HP and DR 5/magic. No character has a magic weapon at this point. Characters are only going to hit it on natural 20 or with a high roll while using the True Strike wand. Even then, that's a lot of HP to chip through. Triple the normal will-o'wisp. It has 4 sorcerer levels on top of its 9 aberration. Scare can be devastating. While it's reasonable to have at least 1 Remove Fear going in, he casts it repeatedly. Smoulderburn also has unique AI where he regularly switches targets--typically after casting Scare. Most people will not have access to communal resist energy. I had two L2 resist energies memorized. Even still, he has +23/23 attack and does 3d8 damage. Owlcat gave it Improved Initiative and Weapon Finesse.

It was intended to be a kick in the pants. That's only a problem for virgin Ironman players. I have no problem with designers intending the player to reload for certain encounters. People don't skip content for the same reason they don't skip parts of their food at a restaurant. Even with the context clues, it was intended to "saddistic game design" in Owlcat's own parlance. Why you are falling on your sword to swear this encounter as being something else, is bizarre.

 

[scytheavatar]

Most people, self included, encounter this at Level 4. Even then, one has all of the right tools available to them, it's just a low blow.

Smoulderburn is a unique Will-o'wisp with 37 AC before it casts Shield (+4). Shield protects it from the singular spell it is not immune to. It has 124 HP and DR 5/magic. No character has a magic weapon at this point. Characters are only going to hit it on natural 20 or with a high roll while using the True Strike wand. Even then, that's a lot of HP to chip through. Triple the normal will-o'wisp. It has 4 sorcerer levels on top of its 9 aberration. Scare can be devastating. While it's reasonable to have at least 1 Remove Fear going in, he casts it repeatedly. Smoulderburn also has unique AI where he regularly switches targets--typically after casting Scare. Most people will not have access to communal resist energy. I had two L2 resist energies memorized. Even still, he has +23/23 attack and does 3d8 damage. Owlcat gave it Improved Initiative and Weapon Finesse.

It was intended to be a kick in the pants. That's only a problem for virgin Ironman players. I have no problem with designers intending the player to reload for certain encounters. People don't skip content for the same reason they don't skip parts of their food at a restaurant. Even with the context clues, it was intended to "saddistic game design" in Owlcat's own parlance. Why you are falling on your sword to swear this encounter as being something else, is bizarre.

Just get a few Resist Energy scrolls, plus one communal version, and the fight gets trivalized. It's not like these scrolls are expensive.

 

[EdgyRightWinger]

Just get a few Resist Energy scrolls, plus one communal version

These scrolls are energy type specific, so until you're fully spoiled you would need to buy all, or more likely none.