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

[MrBuzzKill]

This game kicked my ass.
I was playing on Easy difficulty (which I think reduces the damage enemies normally would deal by 60%... felt kind of humiliated by that revelation, but whatever, I'm here to have a reasonable amount of fun and finish the storyline). I switched to Easy pretty early on cause early fights were too hard for me.
I was on

Spoiler

Varnhold vanishing, taking my time doing all the sidequests (since I didn't even know exactly what I was supposed to be doing, anyway - I visited Varnhold, got some very vague hints and the Kellid camp location... so?).
I've also got this "Magic building up in the capital" event. It's got a different color, I guess, and there's a sense of urgency about it, but... I guess my advisors will deal with this?

Suddenly, instant game-over.

Spoiler

When I was 1 day away from Vordakai's tomb.

Honestly, I was stunned by that, never before in the last 15 years or so has an RPG slapped me in the face with such a non-apologetic and sudden end. And - especially - a Roguelike kind of end, where a save 10 minutes back couldn't rectify the situation.
After a bit of googling I

Spoiler

went back to an earlier save, several real-time hours back, didn't fuck around with exploring the territory, and just went straight to the Tomb.

I made it...
With a party that's collapsing from exhaustion, no rations (dropped those due to their huge weight, to avoid over-exterting the party), no Death wrard/Negative plane protection spells. I had 3 clerics, but in the end that didn't save me.
I couldn't sleep in the game, because advancing the time even by a few hours would mean the game-over event would be triggered. I couldn't sleep in real life, because the prospect of losing over 70 hours of gameplay down the drain was too nerve-wracking.
Basically I tried to trudge through the dungeon, hoping each next turn will be the end boss and this nightmare will be over.
After some time, I realized it's pretty much hopeless, unless I find ways to cheese every fight, and I'm not sure I'm willing to do that.
Maybe I'll switch to Story mode difficulty.
And the last save before that was around

Spoiler

Bloom flower...

Like I said, it's been a while since a CRPG screwed me like that. I had played BG on Core Rules difficulty and never encountered any problems that couldn't be solved with a few save-loads.
Feeling a strange mix of butthurt and amazement.
Years of RPGs lulled me into the sense that I, the player, could never suddenly be told "fuck you" by the game, especially a popular, big-name title like that. I was wrong.

 

[Jarpie]

Some hints for the last dungeon in Varnhold's Lot: a lot of enemies are abominations, magical beasts and fey, also bring someone with as high perception (naturally) as possible, trickery and UMD for scrolls and wands.

 

[Jarpie]

This game kicked my ass.
I was playing on Easy difficulty (which I think reduces the damage enemies normally would deal by 60%... felt kind of humiliated by that revelation, but whatever, I'm here to have a reasonable amount of fun and finish the storyline). I switched to Easy pretty early on cause early fights were too hard for me.
I was on

Spoiler

Varnhold vanishing, taking my time doing all the sidequests (since I didn't even know exactly what I was supposed to be doing, anyway - I visited Varnhold, got some very vague hints and the Kellid camp location... so?).
I've also got this "Magic building up in the capital" event. It's got a different color, I guess, and there's a sense of urgency about it, but... I guess my advisors will deal with this?

Suddenly, instant game-over.

Spoiler

When I was 1 day away from Vordakai's tomb.

Honestly, I was stunned by that, never before in the last 15 years or so has an RPG slapped me in the face with such a non-apologetic and sudden end. And - especially - a Roguelike kind of end, where a save 10 minutes back couldn't rectify the situation.
After a bit of googling I

Spoiler

went back to an earlier save, several real-time hours back, didn't fuck around with exploring the territory, and just went straight to the Tomb.

I made it...
With a party that's collapsing from exhaustion, no rations (dropped those due to their huge weight, to avoid over-exterting the party), no Death wrard/Negative plane protection spells. I had 3 clerics, but in the end that didn't save me.
I couldn't sleep in the game, because advancing the time even by a few hours would mean the game-over event would be triggered. I couldn't sleep in real life, because the prospect of losing over 70 hours of gameplay down the drain was too nerve-wracking.
Basically I tried to trudge through the dungeon, hoping each next turn will be the end boss and this nightmare will be over.
After some time, I realized it's pretty much hopeless, unless I find ways to cheese every fight, and I'm not sure I'm willing to do that.
Maybe I'll switch to Story mode difficulty.
And the last save before that was around

Spoiler

Bloom flower...

Like I said, it's been a while since a CRPG screwed me like that. I had played BG on Core Rules difficulty and never encountered any problems that couldn't be solved with a few save-loads.
Feeling a strange mix of butthurt and amazement.
Years of RPGs lulled me into the sense that I, the player, could never suddenly be told "fuck you" by the game, especially a popular, big-name title like that. I was wrong.

How the fuck can you miss the very clear messages of "YOUR KINGDOM WILL FALL IF YOU DON'T DEAL WITH IT IN X MONTHS!"?

 

[Incendax]

How the fuck can you miss the very clear messages of "YOUR KINGDOM WILL FALL IF YOU DON'T DEAL WITH IT IN X MONTHS!"?

Being conditioned by years of RPGs saying shit is urgent, then letting you faff about as long as you want?
Like that time I left Alduin alone for 3 years, becoming guildmaster of everything (including your mom).

 

[Daidre]

Completed new campaign on hard and liked big dungeon. 2 things surprised me the most:
1. Difficulty. No trash encounters, only set pieces and pretty inventive too. I used default people (mistake, there is no extra content with them) but designers definitely expected you to make your own and optimize the hell out of them.
2. No bugs there. Not even small ones. Of course, one player is not representative, but comparing to first DLC Owlcat actually learned their lesson.
Now I am curious to see main campaign content but it will take some time for me to get there.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Finally, it's about time someone speaks the truth and I say it now for all you paladin fags: No party wants to have paladins.

Who bitch this is?

 

[MrBuzzKill]

How the fuck can you miss the very clear messages of "YOUR KINGDOM WILL FALL IF YOU DON'T DEAL WITH IT IN X MONTHS!"?

Because I'm pretty dense and unless it's actually spelled out for me (like you said, "your kingdom will fall"), I don't get it. The warning was basically "something big and arcane is coming", there was a sense of urgency, so I guessed that at worst I'd have a big unfair fight, or a serious decrease in kingdom stats, as a result of my negligence. I didn't expect the game to actually end.
As Incendax pointed out, other RPGs let you get away with ignoring stuff like that. I had been conditioned by that sort of treatment.

 

[Daidre]

There are new feats in this patch! A have noticed:
- Enhance/Extend Potion and Feral Wings on Alchemist
- Terrain Mastery, Blinding Strike and Familiar on Rogue
- Extended/Reach/Empowered/Maximized/Quickened Magic on Magus
Mayby something else...

 

[Israfael]

I didn't expect the game to actually end.

Shouldn't you have had at least one invasion event by that time? It is actually very graphic in what it does, with so much points lost in all kingdom stats for each day of delay. In any case, you should just go back to the capital immediately as soon as that happens (or even loiter there around at 30-days mark - it always happens around -25 days till event end or so)

 

[Grunker]

Trying to start a new game with a Druid (Defender of the New World) 4 / Monk 1. However I can't pick Monk at level 5, even though I'm lawful neutral. Anybody got an idea why?

EDIT: The game seems to switch my alignment to Neutral after I hit complete on making a new Druid character. Wtf

 

[ArchAngel]

There are new feats in this patch! A have noticed:
- Enhance/Extend Potion and Feral Wings on Alchemist
- Terrain Mastery, Blinding Strike and Familiar on Rogue
- Extended/Reach/Empowered/Maximized/Quickened Magic on Magus
Mayby something else...

More changes than that. Some items got new graphic (like camping supplies) and when picking new feats if you scroll the list to the bottom you can see all your currently owned feats in green.

 

[Jarpie]

I really liked Varhold's Lot, and I hope we'll see more of that wizard, I liked him, and the last dungeon is fucking awesome, the devs must've had fun designing it. Nice to see them adding more feats into the game, but they should've written longer description of what it actually adds too. I bet people are already bitching and crying about the difficulty in steam and plebbit, fuck them.

 

[Daidre]

EDIT: The game seems to switch my alignment to Neutral after I hit complete on making a new Druid character. Wtf

When you move move back and forth on character creator screens, like getting to the last one and changing race/class after, game "remembers" some choices and resets others. And then it tries to skip them if all required field filled. Some wierd things in result.

More changes than that. Some items got new graphic (like camping supplies) and when picking new feats if you scroll the list to the bottom you can see all your currently owned feats in green.

Yeah, there is lot of small changes, no point to write about all of them.
I had LOL reaction right now when noticed that horrible pick-up line dissapeared from Valerie main dialogue tree for my female PC. It was annoying me for months.

I hope we'll see more of that wizard, I liked him

Spoiler

We kinda kill what is left of him in Vordekai Tomb. He is mini boss at beginning of the second floor.

 

[Grunker]

Daidre I don't move back and forth at all. I make my choices, click next, choose Lawful Neutral, click complete, boom: Neutral

 

[Daidre]

My test char stayed LN when I tried to reproduce the bug. But knowing P:K - everything is possible.

 

[Grunker]

I've tried to make the character 10-11 times so I'm certain.

Also: whenever I cancel making a new character and go back to the main menu, I have to restart the game if I want to make another new character. Otherwise I can't select voice set and birthday (that part of the chargen is literally blank) or name, and thus can't click Complete :S

 

[thesheeep]

I've tried to make the character 10-11 times so I'm certain.

Also: whenever I cancel making a new character and go back to the main menu, I have to restart the game if I want to make another new character. Otherwise I can't select voice set and birthday (that part of the chargen is literally blank) or name, and thus can't click Complete :S

You just gotta love programming like this.
It's like some website from the early 2000s where you - after going back a step - need to reselect every choice you already made just in order to be able to click on "next".

 

[purpleblob]

Completed new campaign on hard and liked big dungeon. 2 things surprised me the most:
1. Difficulty. No trash encounters, only set pieces and pretty inventive too. I used default people (mistake, there is no extra content with them) but designers definitely expected you to make your own and optimize the hell out of them.
2. No bugs there. Not even small ones. Of course, one player is not representative, but comparing to first DLC Owlcat actually learned their lesson.
Now I am curious to see main campaign content but it will take some time for me to get there.

Yes, it was very bug free but I'm actually more concerned about the main game once you import the DLC outcomes

 

[Jarpie]

I've tried to make the character 10-11 times so I'm certain.

Also: whenever I cancel making a new character and go back to the main menu, I have to restart the game if I want to make another new character. Otherwise I can't select voice set and birthday (that part of the chargen is literally blank) or name, and thus can't click Complete :S

Do you have mods installed? They can screw with the character creation for the DLC.

 

[TT1]

So, can we import the DLC pc as a companion in the main game?

 

[Grunker]

I've tried to make the character 10-11 times so I'm certain.

Also: whenever I cancel making a new character and go back to the main menu, I have to restart the game if I want to make another new character. Otherwise I can't select voice set and birthday (that part of the chargen is literally blank) or name, and thus can't click Complete :S

Do you have mods installed? They can screw with the character creation for the DLC.

Only the respec mod, but I haven't used it (had to fix a misclicked feat on Valerie but realized I had a save before the level up).

 

[Jarpie]

I've tried to make the character 10-11 times so I'm certain.

Also: whenever I cancel making a new character and go back to the main menu, I have to restart the game if I want to make another new character. Otherwise I can't select voice set and birthday (that part of the chargen is literally blank) or name, and thus can't click Complete :S

Do you have mods installed? They can screw with the character creation for the DLC.

Only the respec mod, but I haven't used it (had to fix a misclicked feat on Valerie but realized I had a save before the level up).

Remove or update it, the old version fucks up with the character creation.

 

[Grunker]

I've tried to make the character 10-11 times so I'm certain.

Also: whenever I cancel making a new character and go back to the main menu, I have to restart the game if I want to make another new character. Otherwise I can't select voice set and birthday (that part of the chargen is literally blank) or name, and thus can't click Complete :S

Do you have mods installed? They can screw with the character creation for the DLC.

Only the respec mod, but I haven't used it (had to fix a misclicked feat on Valerie but realized I had a save before the level up).

Remove or update it, the old version fucks up with the character creation.

Didn't work.

EDIT: Oddly, installing the mod and deactivating it did however. So the problem was with that mod.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Thinking of playing this game. From what I've seen, I like the character generator and all the stats and customization, apparently you also get strategic layer at some point, watched some videos and streams and have some questions:
1. How does stealth work? Is it worth it? Can you pickpocket?
2. Non combat builds are viable to finish the MQ or just not recommeded?
3. Are there multiple ways to solve quests? Stealth, speech etc.
4. Any "immersive sim" elements, like in DOS2?
5. Any tips?

 

[Grunker]

1. You get enough skill points that you don't need to worry - if you like it, take it. It also has some combat value though YMMV.
2. There is no such thing a non combat builds.
3. Yes, but it's very limited. Don't expect Pillars-levels of quest design. The game has a lot of strengths but variation in quest design is rarely it. The game is focused on other things.
4. Not really, no.
5. If you play on Normal or Challenging and don't know the first thing about Pathfinder, look up a few beginner's guides. If you play on higher difficulties, make sure you aren't just picking stuff blindly but that you have a clear plan.