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

[Cael]

While I don’t recommend it, you can cheat the entire level. Park your party at the entrance, except for your best sneaker. Sneaker pops the tomb and triggers the doors, but can hide before enemies appear. You can sneak your sneaker all the way back out without a single fight with some luck. Then fight the entire level backwards with the ability to rest and the axe.

Even more cheating: You can also just leave the map immediately and your sneaker will teleport outside with you.

That was one of the way to get max XP in the Horde Fortress in IWD2. Sneak to the back of the cave area with the password door, preferably with someone who has area effect weaponry (rogue/wizard is a good candidate). Get the password on the way through from the goblin. Blow up the drum with the sneaker. Go the the door, use the password and saturate the area with Fireballs and the like. Go to the next level and get the max XP for sneaking past all three goblin tribes. Then go back up and kill everything.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Only been in the House at the Edge of Time for one hour and this place is fucking horrible. I hate everything. And as I assumed would happen, Amiri's gone because of her bugged companion quest which was broken with patch 1.2. Sigh..

I'm in the house too. I did her quest post 1.2 and it wasn't broken for what it's worth, also for the first time I have both Jaethal and Tristan alive and Jaethal is a living Pharasma inquisitor.
Interestingly, despite that this is the first time that I have all kingdom stats at 10 and all upgrades built, the only masterpiece I got from the artisans was the mithral +8 STR armor. Nobody else brought their masterpiece. Yeah, that RNG is crap.

The encounter before you enter the portal to the house, a dozen ghostly guards and once you've killed them , an entire army of Ankous who spam prismatic spray (hue hue hue how do you liek being a dog), is pretty toxic on unfair.
Those ghosts with their piece of shit touch attack spam (icon looks like shocking grasp, easily deals ~100dmg on unfair) are a nuisance already by themselves, even without a dozen Ankous on top of it. But I found a relatively painless way to deal with it.
Pull with your tank, have 3 ppl read a mass heal scroll once all the ghost appeared, that outright eradicates them, all the while your casters prepare the area from which the Ankous will come with tar pit (good catch Archangel, this spell has proven itself very useful against mandragora swarms as well) , web, 2x sirocco and a nicely placed magma, empowered, maximized Deadly Earth by fire girl.... and no Ankou will ever make it close.

 

[ArchAngel]

Do you need luck when you got Potions of Invisibility?

Potions of Invisibility only gives you big + to Sneak skill. You still need lucky roll not to be noticed by enemy with huge perception

Yes but that +20 + your Stealth should be enough for this area that is not that high level.

 

[Daidre]

The encounter before you enter the portal to the house, a dozen ghostly guards and once you've killed them , an entire army of Ankous who spam prismatic spray (hue hue hue how do you liek being a dog), is pretty toxic on unfair.

if you drag ghosts far enough then Ankous will not agro after killing ghosts. I not even noticed them being parts of the same encounter. And Ankous have they Prismatic Sprays very limited and can be safely murdered after catching first wave of their casts with skeletons.

 

[Cael]

Prismatic Sprays have a limited range, IIRC. Exploit that.

 

[Wolfe]

Only been in the House at the Edge of Time for one hour and this place is fucking horrible. I hate everything. And as I assumed would happen, Amiri's gone because of her bugged companion quest which was broken with patch 1.2. Sigh..

I'm in the house too. I did her quest post 1.2 and it wasn't broken for what it's worth, also for the first time I have both Jaethal and Tristan alive and Jaethal is a living Pharasma inquisitor.
Interestingly, despite that this is the first time that I have all kingdom stats at 10 and all upgrades built, the only masterpiece I got from the artisans was the mithral +8 STR armor. Nobody else brought their masterpiece. Yeah, that RNG is crap.

The encounter before you enter the portal to the house, a dozen ghostly guards and once you've killed them , an entire army of Ankous who spam prismatic spray (hue hue hue how do you liek being a dog), is pretty toxic on unfair.
Those ghosts with their piece of shit touch attack spam (icon looks like shocking grasp, easily deals ~100dmg on unfair) are a nuisance already by themselves, even without a dozen Ankous on top of it. But I found a relatively painless way to deal with it.
Pull with your tank, have 3 ppl read a mass heal scroll once all the ghost appeared, that outright eradicates them, all the while your casters prepare the area from which the Ankous will come with tar pit (good catch Archangel, this spell has proven itself very useful against mandragora swarms as well) , web, 2x sirocco and a nicely placed magma, empowered, maximized Deadly Earth by fire girl.... and no Ankou will ever make it close.

I'm playing on Hard with Kingdom Management set on Easy because I couldn't be bothered with the save scumming. I was surprised that timing and pacing was really good, I managed to upgrade all my stats to X and regions as well one week before the seventh curse hit. Got all of the masterpieces too. I think I should be able to find Jaethal somewhere in order to replace Amiri.

I know the fight you're referring to, it was a fucking mess. I had to spawn a couple of rows of elementals to tank the ghosts, then proceeded to bomb to ever-living shit out of them with Jubilost. Also Undeath to Death was pretty useful. I'll need to try using Mass Heal, that should make things easier in the House. The touch attacks are driving me up the wall.

When all of those fuckers started casting Prismatic Spray I cackled like a maniac. Good fight..

I think Ithuliak was my favourite fight in the game. I got to the Lich at lvl 17 and stomped him but not before he KO'd half on my party with Wail of the Banshee.

Btw, props to whoever suggested the Monk/Eldritch Scion/Dragon Disciple build. My PC is now up to 70-75 AC, +20 to saving throws and +40 to hit. A beast

 

[ArchAngel]

Pull with your tank, have 3 ppl read a mass heal scroll once all the ghost appeared, that outright eradicates them, all the while your casters prepare the area from which the Ankous will come with tar pit (good catch Archangel, this spell has proven itself very useful against mandragora swarms as well) , web, 2x sirocco and a nicely placed magma, empowered, maximized Deadly Earth by fire girl.... and no Ankou will ever make it close.

Tar pit has become my favorite CC spell now :D
Not only it slows down or entangles everyone it also guarantee one round of them being stuck even once they exit the area. And does damage every round and ignores SR. It is basically Web on steroids.

 

[ArchAngel]

Only been in the House at the Edge of Time for one hour and this place is fucking horrible. I hate everything. And as I assumed would happen, Amiri's gone because of her bugged companion quest which was broken with patch 1.2. Sigh..

I'm in the house too. I did her quest post 1.2 and it wasn't broken for what it's worth, also for the first time I have both Jaethal and Tristan alive and Jaethal is a living Pharasma inquisitor.
Interestingly, despite that this is the first time that I have all kingdom stats at 10 and all upgrades built, the only masterpiece I got from the artisans was the mithral +8 STR armor. Nobody else brought their masterpiece. Yeah, that RNG is crap.

The encounter before you enter the portal to the house, a dozen ghostly guards and once you've killed them , an entire army of Ankous who spam prismatic spray (hue hue hue how do you liek being a dog), is pretty toxic on unfair.
Those ghosts with their piece of shit touch attack spam (icon looks like shocking grasp, easily deals ~100dmg on unfair) are a nuisance already by themselves, even without a dozen Ankous on top of it. But I found a relatively painless way to deal with it.
Pull with your tank, have 3 ppl read a mass heal scroll once all the ghost appeared, that outright eradicates them, all the while your casters prepare the area from which the Ankous will come with tar pit (good catch Archangel, this spell has proven itself very useful against mandragora swarms as well) , web, 2x sirocco and a nicely placed magma, empowered, maximized Deadly Earth by fire girl.... and no Ankou will ever make it close.

I'm playing on Hard with Kingdom Management set on Easy because I couldn't be bothered with the save scumming. I was surprised that timing and pacing was really good, I managed to upgrade all my stats to X and regions as well one week before the seventh curse hit. Got all of the masterpieces too. I think I should be able to find Jaethal somewhere in order to replace Amiri.

I know the fight you're referring to, it was a fucking mess. I had to spawn a couple of rows of elementals to tank the ghosts, then proceeded to bomb to ever-living shit out of them with Jubilost. Also Undeath to Death was pretty useful. I'll need to try using Mass Heal, that should make things easier in the House. The touch attacks are driving me up the wall.

When all of those fuckers started casting Prismatic Spray I cackled like a maniac. Good fight..

I think Ithuliak was my favourite fight in the game. I got to the Lich at lvl 17 and stomped him but not before he KO'd half on my party with Wail of the Banshee.

Btw, props to whoever suggested the Monk/Eldritch Scion/Dragon Disciple build. My PC is now up to 70-75 AC, +20 to saving throws and +40 to hit. A beast

As a guy that has been playing kingdom part on normal from the start I can say that there is no need to savescum. If you plan your kingdom upgrades well you can fail some problems/opportunities and still win by the end.

 

[Wolfe]

I wonder why Counterspell isn't in the game.

 

[Haplo]

Well, I don't want to stress about the kingdom part and, in case I'd fail near the end, so I've set kingdom management to easy also. I don't plan to repeat the entire game trough. Though I might anyway in this specific case, but don't plan that basing on fail/succeed state, but rather available time, other games competing for that time and lure of other builds (SS?)).

I prefer to focus on gameplay I actually care about - combat, character building, exploration, itemization.

 

[Yosharian]

It's dropping because average gamers are just too stupid to cope with actual game difficulty. I'm playing on Core (actual Core, using custom game difficulty), I'm level 6, wandered into some undead crypt last night, was getting my ass handed by some undead cunt archers. Took me a while, but eventually I figured out to gather them together in a corridor and nail them all with a Grease spell, took em apart one by one. And I was trapped by the level so I had to defeat these guys or reload a previous save. Pleb gamers just can't cope with this kind of difficulty. That's why it's dropping.

suffice to say that the game simply cannot be played above the lowest difficulty level without the use of a guide and regularly save-scumming

Fun thing about that last encounter. You can sneak around that room, avoiding the boss in the middle to get to a box on the other side of the room. In the box you get a Undead Bane greataxe that you can then use to kill all those undead

Well, shit.

 

[Yosharian]

Hm, nobody's forcing you to go there so soon. At level 6 this must have been quite brutal. It forced me to reload and actually pay attention to what I'm doing at level 11 (on hard, though).

Yeah, I know that. I chose to challenge myself. But plebians don't understand these concepts, such as 'come back later when you're tougher'.

 

[Jarpie]

Has anyone waited around before going to Varnhold in the third chapter? I wonder if there are worthwhile events coming up if I put off going there, like the whip-quest earlier with the trolls.

 

[Wolfe]

I wonder why Counterspell isn't in the game.

Because that is a mechanic best deployed in a turn-based mode. And even then, I would not use it. Let them counter spell you.

Not necessarily. In every round the initiative determines whether one of your spellcasters can counterspell enemies, as in whether they act before (can) or after (can't). The icon of the spell being cast is displayed, which allows you to decide whether you want to or not (in case you recognise it). It would be nice if you could only see the icon if 1. one of your spellcasters has that spell, so it is known, or 2. a successful Arcana check is made. The only thing missing would be counterspells cast as a reaction.

The game is lacking in terms of mage battles, I think this would have been a nice addition.

 

[Haplo]

Has anyone waited around before going to Varnhold in the third chapter? I wonder if there are worthwhile events coming up if I put off going there, like the whip-quest earlier with the trolls.

I did delay starting the quest. And I don't think there are any late triggers. The missing brother quest started even before Varnhold Vanishing I think.

 

[ArchAngel]

Has anyone waited around before going to Varnhold in the third chapter? I wonder if there are worthwhile events coming up if I put off going there, like the whip-quest earlier with the trolls.

I delayed it for 1-2 months. I wanted to level up some advisors before I start doing it because after it you get barbarians/Armag thing and you cannot level up advisors again. All I got is Undead attack problem events that start to stack on top of each other and lock down one advisor each for 21 days.

 

[Wolfe]

Somehow Jaethal has become invincible in my game, she can't go below 20 something HP. Honestly, it's fine by me, I've stopped caring by this point after fighting 1000 copy-pasted packs of Wild Hunt mobs and ghosts.. I just want to be done with the House. The companion bit was great but after that everything fell apart, I'm bored and no longer having fun.

How to shoot yourself in the foot after 5 chapters, demonstrated by yours truly, the Owlcats.

 

[HoboForEternity]

so you are basically telling the trash mobs are getting worse?

 

[Yosharian]

Somehow Jaethal has become invincible in my game, she can't go below 20 something HP. Honestly, it's fine by me, I've stopped caring by this point after fighting 1000 copy-pasted packs of Wild Hunt mobs and ghosts.. I just want to be done with the House. The companion bit was great but after that everything fell apart, I'm bored and no longer having fun.

How to shoot yourself in the foot after 5 chapters, demonstrated by yours truly, the Owlcats.

Have they made any indication that they're going to work on the final chapters a bit more?

 

[Cael]

Somehow Jaethal has become invincible in my game, she can't go below 20 something HP. Honestly, it's fine by me, I've stopped caring by this point after fighting 1000 copy-pasted packs of Wild Hunt mobs and ghosts.. I just want to be done with the House. The companion bit was great but after that everything fell apart, I'm bored and no longer having fun.

How to shoot yourself in the foot after 5 chapters, demonstrated by yours truly, the Owlcats.

That's one way to shoot themselves in the foot...

 

[ArchAngel]

Somehow Jaethal has become invincible in my game, she can't go below 20 something HP. Honestly, it's fine by me, I've stopped caring by this point after fighting 1000 copy-pasted packs of Wild Hunt mobs and ghosts.. I just want to be done with the House. The companion bit was great but after that everything fell apart, I'm bored and no longer having fun.

How to shoot yourself in the foot after 5 chapters, demonstrated by yours truly, the Owlcats.

I didn't really hate it that much, but that might have been because I obliterated all Wild Hunt with Deadly Earth :D

I hated more that those Wild Hunt encounters are harder than all named boss fights in the House.

 

[Wolfe]

This is how I imagine the design conversation took place in the Owlcat office:

Lead designer: "Hey, you know how every player is going to exploit the game and take 1 level of vivisectionist on every character because we couldn't be bothered to implement sneak attacks properly? What if we turned the tables and spammed them with enemies that swarm and sneak attack the party vs touch AC? "
Designer: "That doesn't sound very balanced.."
Lead designer: "Who cares? You know very well that the job description says "no acolytes of Saywer allowed." Oh, and they better have not forgot to pick Blind Fight on every character, otherwise everyone's getting paralysed for a minute. And if they think they can get away with spamming Freedom of Movement, think again, fuckos. We're giving Dispelling strikes to half of the mobs in this dungeon."
Designer: "That really doesn't sound fun at all. Aren't you worried that they'll just ragequit?"
Lead designer: "Oh no, the trap has already been sprung. This is why our game is 150 hours long, to chain the players and make them desperate to see what theur choices and efforts lead up to. They won't be able to bear giving up on the final payoff and will set the game on easy instead. And then, we'll have won.."
Designer: "....."
Lead designer: "You still have much to learn about Russian game design philosophy, young one. Come, I will show you.."

But the Owlcats are about to learn a lesson: you can't out-cunt your players. I had a hunch they'd lock me in the House so I packed 100 supplies. Every fucking Wild Hunt pack I see is getting triple Sirocco'd. Rest, repeat

 

[Cael]

This is how I imagine the design conversation took place in the Owlcat office:

Lead designer: "Hey, you know how every player is going to exploit the game and take 1 level of vivisectionist on every character because we couldn't be bothered to implement sneak attacks properly? What if we turned the tables and spammed them with enemies that swarm and sneak attack the party vs touch AC? "
Designer: "That doesn't sound very balanced.."
Designer #1: "Who cares? You know very well that the job description says "no acolytes of Saywer allowed." Oh, and they better have not forgot to pick Blind Fight on every character, otherwise everyone's getting paralysed for a minute. And if they think they can get away with spamming Freedom of Movement, think again, fuckos. We're giving Dispelling strikes to half of the mobs in this dungeon."
Designer: "That really doesn't sound fun at all. Aren't you worried that they'll just ragequit?"
Lead designer: "Oh no, the trap has already been sprung. This is why our game is 150 hours long, to chain the players and make them desperate to see what theur choices and efforts lead up to. They won't be able to bear giving up on the final payoff and will set the game on easy instead. And then, we'll have won.."
Designer: "....."
Lead designer: "You still have much to learn about Russian game design philosophy, young one. Come, I will show you.."

But the Owlcats are about to learn a lesson: you can't out-cunt your players. I had a hunch they'd lock me in the House so I packed 100 supplies. Every fucking Wild Hunt pack I see is getting triple Sirocco'd. Rest, repeat

You forgot the part where the Lead Designer told the youngling about the horde of bribed shills attacking and bullying anyone who dare to say that kind of asshattery is being a cunt for the sake of being a cunt.

 

[Grunker]

Being a cunt for the sake of being a cunt... these guys must be DMs in their time off :D

 

[Wolfe]

I'd rather not use Kalikke because Deadly Earth doesn't do anything against ghosts (immune to bludgeoning), which represent half of the fights in the House.

I don't think Owlcat have said anything about redesigning this area, they're focused on bugfixing, that's fine.. This would be a big effort though, they need to fix all of the mobs, the fact that the House is pointlessly huge and long and unrewarding, etc.