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

[Grunker]

The balance does seem to be all over the place.

Overall it’s a reversed bell curve. It’s starts off fine, then becomes completely trivial, then slowly ramps back up during the last chapter

 

[Grunker]

Activating Judgments is tiresome methinks

It is easier and better than how Smite works.

Isn’t Smite just a click or toggle? Ink needing five clicks everytime you begin combat is p. tiresome.

 

[axedice]

Btw I finally decided to stick with one character and finished the game this weekend. I have to agree it's one of the best RPG's of the decade. HATEOT unfortunately is slight decline due to boring teleport / pixel hunt design but it's clear they've run out of ideas time and just rushed it. Still a very good story overall, memorable characters and quests, nice C&C and the system adaptation is probably the best I've ever seen in a computer game.

I started with challenging difficulty, switched to hard midgame and ended with unfair. Though I must admit I kinda cheated it with Jubilost first and then the kineticist sister(s) , so YMMV based on your inner munchkin. I had sick fun discussing and trying out builds, partitioning loot and trampling my foes, up until HatEoT atleast, after which the game turned into a boring and endless trash hunt with the same kineticist traps to kill entire Wild Hunt / Ghost packs over and over again. Luckily ch7 changed the pace of the game with some interesting mechanics and a (semi) satisfying ending.


I finished the game at lvl20 with a full party btw, so they probably fixed all the quest xp bugs. I'm sure the 50+ persuasion of my main helped with the last level alot, the grimoire quest was especially lucrative with lots of 40+ checks.


So some endgame questions / comments:

Frist Crown

I gave the crown to Salim and it had no effect on the game. Did I skip something or was it the choice where you got nothing back but good intentions? Because both of the other 2 choices there significantly alter the ending

Chapter 7 Sacrifice

I agreed with Tsanna to sacrifice Evindra, because seriously fuck those meddling fey man. Then I tricked Evindra into Tsanna's trap, but never saw either of them later. I read somewhere that Vordekai was also present during the sacrifice but I killed Vordekai in my game. I don't see how he could be necessary for the ritual, still maybe a bug tied to him?

Final Boss

I wish there was a way to either kill or atleast de-power the fucking lantern with combat. I could've killed him over and over again there, and as far as I know the fey lose a portion of their power each time they die. Would've been great to beat the fucker in his own game, though I'm not so sure about the rules there. Almost makes me wish I'd given the crown to Shyka for the LULZ.

As for my favorite characters (both storytelling and combat-wise) Jaethal comes first. Just give her some (atleast13) tower shield levels and she can tank everything in the game. And I mean everything. Mass ability drain swarms/ghosts? Immune. Poison early game? Immune. Fear/charm/confuse midgame? Immune. Level drain spamming demons? Fucking lulz they give her bonus hit points. For the rest (like giant treantlike owlbear huge massive +30 attack shit) her AC was well over their reach (in hard) except for a natural 20 and thats where displacelement from Jubilost kicks in. You don't need a 100+ AC monk pally hybrid to tank, a 70+ AC Jaethal is more than enough to tank endgame on unfair. The only time she died was a double 20 through the displacement from Armag (1 shotted my poor waifu) , but then again he was so weak against CC he died 2 rounds after. Jaethal (actually all the companions) also had a cool story, maybe nothing like MotB / KotOR2 level of depth but that was probably beyond their scope.


Second place goes to Kineticists obviously. I mean I could kill the endgame with some preperation and tactics with other characters aswell, but why bother with those endless swarms if you can just place 2 deadly earths right in front of your tank and then pull with a cloud from 60 ft? Unfair wild hunt monarchs turn to dust in 4 rounds with a spammable ability, which is a great satisfaction after spending your entire spell arsenal on them and having to rest. Unavoidable AoE (with different damage types aswell) is just shit. So why not the first place? Well because on unfair the AoE's need a tank to keep the enemies inside them. I also liked how their story progressed and ended. You have to be very careful to keep both of them alive and well.

Third place goes to Jubilost, my favorite smartass. I was shocked when Vordekai killed poor Nok Nok with a single spell, then Jubilost kicked his ass with bombs and he didn't have time to cast another spell ever. He was the reason I turned from challenging to hard.


Also worthy of mention is my main the monster tactician. Up until unfair and endgame, the summons can both hold their own and provide significant tanking/firepower. Spontaneous divine caster is a great addition to your priest as well. Memorize all the cool spells with your cleric and cast the boring ones with inquisitor on a need basis. Unfortunately the summons stopped being useful once mass ability drains kicked in.




It has been a long time since I had this much fun with a game. Kingdom Come was great too, but Kingmaker is definitely my kind of game. It deserves a two thumbs up




And now it's time to start Varnhold theorycrafting with builds I never played on main campaign. Back to the drawing board

 

[ArchAngel]

Activating Judgments is tiresome methinks

It is easier and better than how Smite works.

Isn’t Smite just a click or toggle? Ink needing five clicks everytime you begin combat is p. tiresome.

Smite is click and chose target but sometimes the character does not use it for some reason. It is also complicated to smite and charge.
Judgement is click twice and forget about it and it lasts whole combat and not just vs one enemy.

 

[anvi]

The balance does seem to be all over the place.

Overall it’s a reversed bell curve. It’s starts off fine, then becomes completely trivial, then slowly ramps back up during the last chapter

I'd be happy with that. I think I'm at the totally trivial point and it gets boring. Looking forward to it going back up again. Although I still sometimes get a surprise like some dungeon I went to that has 2 big golems that are immune to every spell and hit like a truck. The boss was tough too. That said, I did the whole dungeon without a rest and I wasn't even rested when I entered.. -__-

Still enjoying it though, but looking forward to some meaty battles.

 

[Yosharian]

I think one issue is that there's so many trash mobs that any kind of specialized caster feels like a waste. My Wizard just twiddles her thumbs in most fights, and I can't help but wonder if I shouldn't swap her out for a Trickster.

Same for my Cleric.

It is nice to have them in the tough fights, though. Oh well.

 

[ArchAngel]

I think one issue is that there's so many trash mobs that any kind of specialized caster feels like a waste. My Wizard just twiddles her thumbs in most fights, and I can't help but wonder if I shouldn't swap her out for a Trickster.

Same for my Cleric.

It is nice to have them in the tough fights, though. Oh well.

Well that is kind of how wizards in PnP work as well. They mostly sit out trash fights and then own the difficult ones.

 

[anvi]

My casters all have crossbows so they contribute in trash fights too, don't even have to move. All the random encounter type fights everything splats before my warrior can even reach it. Just fought some evil demon though and it took some serious dps to kill it before it ate my tanks. Nuking stuff with fireballs and whatnot and it does 10 damage is pretty demoralising.

 

[Yosharian]

I think one issue is that there's so many trash mobs that any kind of specialized caster feels like a waste. My Wizard just twiddles her thumbs in most fights, and I can't help but wonder if I shouldn't swap her out for a Trickster.

Same for my Cleric.

It is nice to have them in the tough fights, though. Oh well.

Well that is kind of how wizards in PnP work as well. They mostly sit out trash fights and then own the difficult ones.

Yes but my point is that in Kingmaker 97% of the fights are trash

Whereas a decent PnP game won't have nearly that many pointless encounters

 

[Grunker]

The balance does seem to be all over the place.

Overall it’s a reversed bell curve. It’s starts off fine, then becomes completely trivial, then slowly ramps back up during the last chapter

I'd be happy with that. I think I'm at the totally trivial point and it gets boring. Looking forward to it going back up again. Although I still sometimes get a surprise like some dungeon I went to that has 2 big golems that are immune to every spell and hit like a truck. The boss was tough too. That said, I did the whole dungeon without a rest and I wasn't even rested when I entered.. -__-

I did the whole Armag dungeon with full-on Exhaustion because I was nearing the deadline and didn't have any Restoration on me

 

[Haplo]

That sounds.. painful. I hope you brought many Death Ward scrolls with you.

 

[Grunker]

For what? Valerie tanked everything and since mobs are retarded and don't take AOOs under ANY circumstances or God forbi use Mobility or similar tools, the rest of my party are effectively immune to melee damage. Only painful thing was the walking speed which I admit was a hassle but I fucked up in not noticing the quest was on a timer so it literally came down to the wire

(I did use a lot of lesser restoration for the rare times she was hit)

 

[Haplo]

Well, there were a lot of level draining, touch-attacking specters in there. And lesse restoration doesn't help with level drain. Of course maybe your Val was better defense-wise then mine. Still a natural 20 is still a hit. Unless you also used Mirror Image.
Note I play on Hard, that may also alter their hit chances a bit.

 

[Haplo]

At level 9, easy? Interesting. What spells did you use (other then Baleful Polymorph, which leaves no loot)?
Did you have to rely on lich rolling very low to suceed?

At level 11 you can damage the lich with Blade Barrier, but prior to that the damage spells I've tested were rather ineffective.

 

[Sykar]

I think one issue is that there's so many trash mobs that any kind of specialized caster feels like a waste. My Wizard just twiddles her thumbs in most fights, and I can't help but wonder if I shouldn't swap her out for a Trickster.

Same for my Cleric.

It is nice to have them in the tough fights, though. Oh well.

Well that is kind of how wizards in PnP work as well. They mostly sit out trash fights and then own the difficult ones.

Yes but my point is that in Kingmaker 97% of the fights are trash

Whereas a decent PnP game won't have nearly that many pointless encounters

That is the problem of the vast majority of cRPGs though.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Constricting coils - school enchantment
target: 1 living creature
allows a save every round which would end the paralyzing effect, if the undead lich would be affected by it, which it shouldn't be

Sage advice.

 

[Haplo]

Vine Trap does work (if you're lucky of course). I guess Icy Prison would also do the trick. You can also kinda keep him perma-tripped, if you have good trippers (worked for me... eventually). But the real challenge is actually depleting his HP at that level without double Blade Barriers before he breaks free/the spell ends.
If he manages to cast, its generally game over at those levels.

Maybe that's possible with spamming a TrueStrike wand, preferably on a magus with wand SpellCombat, but not sure.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

You can always cheese it with heart of ira.

 

[entr0py]

Hey guys! Sorry, just a quick question. I remember that devs mentioned they are working on some big patch to iron out most of the issues people have reported. Was that big patch included in the DLC, or we are still waiting for it? If yes, does anyone have an idea when it might come out? I told myself to start the game when that patch is finally out
Thank in advance!

Can someone please confirm, whether the DLC also includes big patch or its still coming sometimes later?

 

[Daidre]

It does not. Last really big patch was 1.2 almost month ago and only info about 1.3 is "will try to ship in March". 1.2.5 with Varnhold DLC is pretty minor.

From steam:

Spoiler

As per usual, even while working on our new DLC “Varnhold’s Lot”, we kept improving the base game according to your feedback and suggestions. Most of the team are now busy with our next big patch - version 1.3, which we hope to push out in March.

 

[ArchAngel]

Hey guys! Sorry, just a quick question. I remember that devs mentioned they are working on some big patch to iron out most of the issues people have reported. Was that big patch included in the DLC, or we are still waiting for it? If yes, does anyone have an idea when it might come out? I told myself to start the game when that patch is finally out
Thank in advance!

Can someone please confirm, whether the DLC also includes big patch or its still coming sometimes later?

1.1 and 1.2 were "big patches". 1.3 will be another one of those, that one will focus on kingdom management.

 

[Jarpie]

I'm replaying Varnhold DLC - there are actually quite a lot of secrets hidden in the final dungeon e.g. boogie man (perception check) and the dog in the entrance level.

Spoiler

Still haven't really figured out what really triggers the portal by casting teleport/dimension door spell that changes the dog into a monster.

Spoiler

Both encounters were good fun and you get pretty decent loots too.

Boogie man was fucking tough, I had fully buffed party and it still almost won.

 

[razvedchiki]

Alchemist on hard is not such an op class?

 

[Incendax]

At level 9, easy? Interesting. What spells did you use (other then Baleful Polymorph, which leaves no loot)?
At level 11 you can damage the lich with Blade Barrier, but prior to that the damage spells I've tested were rather ineffective.

You CAN precast multiple wands of true strike, but using the wands after the fight starts takes time you don't really have before he drops that Wail. Earliest I was able to blitz him legit was Level 10, when the Sensei AOE True Strike came online. That worked because only one character was spending actions to activate True Strike for everyone. Level 11 brings Blade Barrier online, and then Jaethal can kite him around it.

Or you can use Alchemist spam. But everything dies to Alchemist spam.

 

[Simple Simon]

Spoiler

Any way to save the mobs you bring with the General to the last dungeon in Varnhold's lot? RIP the Brawler. I love the idea of a scaled fist monk gnome in a mercenary band. "He's 3 feet tall, insists on fighting with his fists, and is obsessed with dragons but Gods damn it he gets results."