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

[Chippy]

having some homosexuals in game =/= SJW crusade. there are probably like 3 or 4 to several dozens of NPC in game. there is a difference between being a little inclusive vs total idiocy like bioware.

The game have more than enough SJW in it. No need to pretends that it is not,the game is still good even if filled with SJW shit.

It also seems like it's trolling SJWs sometimes though, like Amiri is actually not tough like she thinks, and Reg and Octavia have a pretty unhealthy relationship. It's as :balanced: as you could possibly expect considering that the source material is from INCLOOSIVE Paizo.

Shhhhh...don't say that too loud - the SJW's are too thick to grasp the subtlety, and we don't want anyone drawing them any pictures.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

So much for muh based non-degenerate Slavs.

It's full with promoting of faggotry, race-mixing and similar degenerate stuff. Of course I can't say if Paizo enforced this (quite likely imo) or if it's the doing of those Russians. The good thing is, it's mostly just 1 or 2 sentences here and there and then you'll never have to talk to them again, whereas in a kwanzoonian game they would shove that shit down your throat 24/7.

--------
besides: I finished the game with my first char (on challenging) eldritch archer 14/ vivi 4
(jaethal f1/inq17 - harrim cl1/dr17 - Octavia r1/at10/w7 - ekun rng15/vivi3 - nok-nok r8/viv 10)

The difficulty during ch6 and 7 has been greatly exaggerated on Steam as well as here. Yes the house felt like it took ages and was a bit annoying at times but at the very least there were a few encounters where I had to reload. The only encounter where I had to reload more than once though, incl. the lantern king, was the one against 4 mandragora swarms. Given that from chapter 2 on pretty much 99% of the game could be defeated by (long duration buffs up)->haste->select all->left click the game did at least try to be a bit less roflstompy. Still, generally the encounter design is pretty bad and has nothing on old stuff like the Icewind Dales.

Most named boss monsters are alone and can't really put up any resistance against a party of 6 even if some Steam noobs claim they're "impossible to defeat even on story mode" - lel. Just take the boss fight with Naryssa - how long will that single mob stand against the might of your party? Two combat rounds? Three? Remember Sablic Taan? Tyrannar Brutai Mar? Lost followers? Remember Isair (Rogue10/Sorc20) and Madae (F10/CLeric20), buffed with everything the spell system had in store, spamming blasphemy and attacking you with black blade of disaster? And they had minions, lots of them, including high level casters. I remember an IWD2 fight in the Dragon Eye, after the party had freed some prisoners (incl. a drow wizard) they rested and woke up (now unbuffed) when that drow wizard returned improved invisible and attacked out of nowhere with... Wail of the Banshee. Then proceeded to summon pit fiends and spam FoD and Disintegrate. Everybody died except a single Pally/Monk/Sorcerer with impenetrable saves who finished the encounter (liek a boss), an encounter more difficult and more memorable than anything PK has to offer. Seriously, there are chapter bosses here that literally die from the first full attack, wtf?

The Lantern king went down first try - which tells you everything you need to know about the general combat difficulty. Similar to how serializing everything into json format is the laziest and dumbest way to handle savegames, using stat bloat to increase difficulty is also the laziest and dumbest way. No improved AI, not more enemy casters, not spawning more powerful types of mobs - just +8 STATS men! It makes the beginning of the game literal AIDS while at the end you won't be able to tell the difference.

So yes, the difficulty has been greatly overstated and I guess if some of these nu-gamers were to play some 20-30 year old classics the stream of tears would be endless and drown everything this side of the Caucasus.

PS: After seeing the Pathfinder ruleset in action I think it's significantly worse than 3.5. The feat bloat is real, everybody is so friggin powerful and gets so much stuff, it's uncanny. The damage that comes in or goes out is completely off the charts, so often it's just: fuck them in seconds or get fucked in seconds.

PPS: the RtwP clusterfuck is also worse than usual, you can't even queue actions - something ~20yo games offered. Yes, not being able to queue actions significantly hinders your ability to micromanage a party in RtwP.

PPPS: Still, despite the shortcomings, it was a fun ride and generally an oldschool experience, something rare these days. This game was from before 1.1 but the only bugs I ran into were:
- a bunch of stuck advisor cards
- artisans not working (no big deal)
- tristan quest not firing (no big deal either, so I could keep undead tank)

That was it, significantly more bug-free experience than my post 1.1 run on hard, during which I had way more bugs. In that hard run I'm just after killing Irovetti. (Monk1/KM4/Vivi11 ~60 buffed AC, greater twf, 70-100 dmg strikes 24/7 while under legendary proportions, another ~10 ac incoming from endgame gear...lulz)

 

[Cael]

PS: After seeing the Pathfinder ruleset in action I think it's significantly worse than 3.5. The feat bloat is real, everybody is so friggin powerful and gets so much stuff, t's uncanny. The damage that comes in or goes out is completely off the charts, so often it's just: fuck them in seconds or get fucked in seconds.

Some of the spells and abilities are pretty much powergamer paradise. It is uncanny how Paizo advertised Pathfinder as the anti-3.5, the system without the 3.5 powergaming, where you are practically forced into single class, where you can't cherrypick stuff, where there is no broken stuff like Polymorph. And then they introduced a whole new universe of crazy parmesan and stuff that made even Shapechange and Gate feel lacking.

And that is without even touching the broken and obvious buggy crap in Kingmaker like the sneak attack shit.

 

[garren]

I noticed there's a new concept art piece on Steam for the DLC. Maybe the new companion?

Spoiler

 

[Shadenuat]

I finished the game with my first char (on challenging)

The difficulty during ch6 and 7 has been greatly exaggerated

If you played BG with mods you should not even play anything but Hard+.

I agree encounters leave to be desired. And funny thing, the weakest part is actual Pathfinder system. Its spells do not provide casters with same survivability and action windows AD&D allowed. Vordakai and Fufufu-luch are best examples of this. Also, spells lack the same OOMPH. Like, FoD and Wail just... do damage.

Owlcats tried to buff original basketweaving masters (just look at Nyrissa in PnP module, she is what, 16th level Mystic Teurge? lololo) but there is only so much you can do.

Sadly there is no way Owlcats can go around this because if they increase difficulty, noone would buy their game; and to change every encounter in 150+ hours game would require complete re-design of everything.

 

[razvedchiki]

can the encounters be modded like in bg2?owlcat seems to be happy with the current state of the game.....

 

[Shadenuat]

I wouldn't say they are "happy" since their mechanics designer said he wants AT LEAST three spells for every School in game on every spell level (so that's half a dozen more for Divination at least, for example). That means enemies getting more spells too.

I'ma betting on DLCs/mods.

Btw VoD you should really post that IWD bit on Steam in a revio. Because I am a bit tired alone consistently bothering Owlcats saying that enemy casters suck and encounters need to be better

 

[ArchAngel]

I wouldn't say they are "happy" since their mechanics designer said he wants AT LEAST three spells for every School in game on every spell level (so that's half a dozen more for Divination at least, for example). That means enemies getting more spells too.

I'ma betting on DLCs/mods.

Btw VoD you should really post that IWD bit on Steam in a revio. Because I am a bit tired alone consistently bothering Owlcats saying that enemy casters suck and encounters need to be better

Are you bothering them on Discord? They seem to be very active there by some accounts.
I might need to join that one because I got myself banned from Steam. I had a moment of weakness and posted in a topic that asked for more male gay companions. I was just making "a joke" and got a permanent ban

 

[Shadenuat]

Ima mostly try to counter Steam because oh here we go again https://steamcommunity.com/app/640820/discussions/0/1734340257887488957/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/640820/discussions/0/1734340257887488957/

oh these are old ones.

but whateverz.

something similar pops out every day.

oh game is 73%/69%
guess dlc thing worked for now, huh.

Are you bothering them on Discord?

I am too old for using anything else but Codex. I ask them questions during their Streams. They know me as Sarcastic Gaze Guy. The problem is they are done mostly by narrative dude and it is as easy to get something out of their mechanics designer as pulling teeth. The best I got so far is that they did not allow Intensify spell to make Maguses use something else but 1st level spells and that more spells are coming.

 

[razvedchiki]

there was one recent that got locked,butthurt over the wererats-"why i cant win every battle at my lvl?"
https://steamcommunity.com/app/640820/discussions/0/1743352529777798396/

also,i tried a hospitalier and his smite per day remains 1 despite being lvl 9 (+1) and having the blessed armor.

 

[Shadenuat]

Oh that thread

Here is the review by one of locals, enjoy: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197960527629/recommended/640820/

 

[Parabalus]

Btw VoD you should really post that IWD bit on Steam in a revio. Because I am a bit tired alone consistently bothering Owlcats saying that enemy casters suck and encounters need to be better

They'll probably just revert Greater Shout .

 

[cw8]

Nominated this game for "Labour of Love Award" from that Steam awards thingy. Would add GOTY too but you can only select one award. Nominated Subnautica for goty.

 

[Thonius]

Eh the problem of last chapters - lantern shit with backtracking. Samey enemy. And no bard for me (So no great shout and buffs). My party was kinda build around her abilities ( for example I took certain spells for Jaethal because Linzy got none of this type and vice versa). I did not have enough freedom of movement spells and remove paralyze. ( Is there protection against Gaze? Other than blindfight? )
And Final battle gives you no chance to save mid encounter. One error/wild rng and you're forced to load, oh and his dispel, it even dispels DD dragon-form and since I build my char around that I was super butthurt. ( Oh and there is a bug that prevent spells gained trough bloodline from appearing in spell book. Unless you already can cast spell of that level. For Example I gained Dragon Form 3 trough bloodline, but since I dont have access to 8 lvl spells I cannot use it)
Anyhow, now I'm gonna play waiting game- wait till DLC release and replay. It will be probably around 1.5 version and it will be glorious.

 

[Parabalus]

Eh the problem of last chapters - lantern shit with backtracking. Samey enemy. And no bard for me (So no great shout and buffs). My party was kinda build around her abilities ( for example I took certain spells for Jaethal because Linzy got none of this type and vice versa). I did not have enough freedom of movement spells and remove paralyze. ( Is there protection against Gaze? Other than blindfight? )
And Final battle gives you no chance to save mid encounter. One error/wild rng and you're forced to load, oh and his dispel, it even dispels DD dragon-form and since I build my char around that I was super butthurt.
Anyhow, now I'm gonna play waiting game- wait till DLC release and replay. It will be probably around 1.5 version and it will be glorious.

They added 99 FoM scrolls to the merchant there.

 

[Lawntoilet]

there was one recent that got locked,butthurt over the wererats-"why i cant win every battle at my lvl?"
https://steamcommunity.com/app/640820/discussions/0/1743352529777798396/

also,i tried a hospitalier and his smite per day remains 1 despite being lvl 9 (+1) and having the blessed armor.

Couple of gems in that thread from the same guy who posted this review

Oh that thread

Here is the review by one of locals, enjoy: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197960527629/recommended/640820/

"Open world means you should run across tons of encounters that all just happen to be level-appropriate"
"How am I supposed to expect this encounter to be hard, it just says rats, rats should be easy"

 

[Whisper]

The difficulty during ch6 and 7 has been greatly exaggerated on Steam as well as here. Yes the house felt like it took ages and was a bit annoying at times but at the very least there were a few encounters where I had to reload. The only encounter where I had to reload more than once though, incl. the lantern king, was the one against 4 mandragora swarms. Given that from chapter 2 on pretty much 99% of the game could be defeated by (long duration buffs up)->haste->select all->left click the game did at least try to be a bit less roflstompy. Still, generally the encounter design is pretty bad and has nothing on old stuff like the Icewind Dales.

This is because you play on easy or normal.

For story mode you dont need even haste.

 

[Lawntoilet]

The difficulty during ch6 and 7 has been greatly exaggerated on Steam as well as here. Yes the house felt like it took ages and was a bit annoying at times but at the very least there were a few encounters where I had to reload. The only encounter where I had to reload more than once though, incl. the lantern king, was the one against 4 mandragora swarms. Given that from chapter 2 on pretty much 99% of the game could be defeated by (long duration buffs up)->haste->select all->left click the game did at least try to be a bit less roflstompy. Still, generally the encounter design is pretty bad and has nothing on old stuff like the Icewind Dales.

This is because you play on easy or normal.

For story mode you dont need even haste.

He said he played on Challenging. Still should've turned it up though.
I don't think people here are complaining as much about the last chapters being hard though, more about them being tedious and repetitive because the encounters are copy-pasted Wild Hunt mobs with the occasional Owlbear or Mandragora swarm thrown in.
The Shadows fights are at least a bit of a change from that after the House, and the "allies come to help" aspect would change up chapter 7 a little if they didn't all get stunlocked the whole time (it's a nice touch but the only one worth wasting a cast of FoM on is Armag).

Btw VoD you should really post that IWD bit on Steam in a revio. Because I am a bit tired alone consistently bothering Owlcats saying that enemy casters suck and encounters need to be better

They'll probably just revert Greater Shout .

I found Farnirras pretty hard first time I tried before they nerfed Greater Shout (it is closer to PnP not I guess but still not the same). Was not expecting that+Wail-spam from him

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Btw VoD you should really post that IWD bit on Steam in a revio.

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198019733721/recommended/640820

This is because you play on easy or normal.

Nope.
And I can absolutely assure you that in my game on hard with that 60AC knife master things are WAY easier than on that challenging run.

 

[Shadenuat]

The general direction for encounters goes down somewhere around Varnhold - also the time where your party begins to rapidly advance in power - which exacerbates the whole issue.
As expected, low level D&D is always best D&D, and it's same here.

On occasion it goes back to sparks of brilliance (some of dungeons, some of bosses, 2 gnomes, wild hunt - if only it had some plot and wasn't all copypasted zerg-rushes, etc.) but then returns to:
- Prebuff and kill all spriggans (this is the first arguably REALLY BAD location in the game)
- Prebuff and kill all cyclops. turn around corner. 3 more cyclops. turn around corner. 5 more cyclops.
- Prebuff and kill all dumbfuck bards
- Prebuff and kill all irovetti guards

Just compare that to Sycamore - 2 rival factions, neutral animals, wolfs, solo mini-bosses, fey-kangax, undead, poison, 4 party fights, in that tutorial location game throws more new stuff on you than whole Varnhold chapter combined. Many monsters even have dialogue. Many monsters also have unique mini mini bosses with player classes (mite butcher torturing lone kobold in their cells is some fey/rogue hybrid, very cute).

Oh and random encounters? ElderElementalsMarches.

As is they add nothing to the game, remove them all except plot ones.

And I can absolutely assure you that in my game on hard with that 60AC knife master things are WAY easier than on that challenging run.

I have a lot more control over myself, so my first playthrough was on Hard with vanilla companions only, no multi-classing.

Unobtrusive spell effects: finally someone who gets it right

I nominate Web effect in this game as the best Web effect for Web spell in any D&D game, ever.

 

[Shadenuat]

How do you get it? Also i am really annoyed at how big the late buildings are,not enough space.

This is actually unique from mini-mini quest based around Kingdom Event, if you solve it with particular advisor (one can invite them, another doesn't) and then do Lawful Good choice - so one of the rare times when Kingdom Management works right, i.e. produces extra content and some roleplay + not terrible bonus.

 

[Lawntoilet]

Btw VoD you should really post that IWD bit on Steam in a revio.

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198019733721/recommended/640820

This is because you play on easy or normal.

Nope.
And I can absolutely assure you that in my game on hard with that 60AC knife master things are WAY easier than on that challenging run.

Good review. Appreciate you calling out that regard who made a 7 Cha sorcerer (and then claimed he's played "hundreds of RPGs" )

 

[Ipum]

PnP Pathfinder dev/null'ed some powerfull 3,5 things like power attack+leap attack+ shock trooper, divine metamagic persist, orb of... spells, incantatrix megamagic madness, polymorph SU ability abuse, cheater of Mystra etc.

 

[ArchAngel]

Btw VoD you should really post that IWD bit on Steam in a revio.

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198019733721/recommended/640820

This is because you play on easy or normal.

Nope.
And I can absolutely assure you that in my game on hard with that 60AC knife master things are WAY easier than on that challenging run.

Good review. Appreciate you calling out that regard who made a 7 Cha sorcerer (and then claimed he's played "hundreds of RPGs" )

Now that you mention this I did Armag's Tomb yesterday without resting on challenging with lvl 12/13 party. They became lvl 13 inside the tomb but I didn't rest to get new spells :D
Armag

Spoiler

died to Icy Prison :D but he did take out my priest with one shot crit just before that.

 

[fantadomat]

How do you get it? Also i am really annoyed at how big the late buildings are,not enough space.

This is actually unique from mini-mini quest based around Kingdom Event, if you solve it with particular advisor (one can invite them, another doesn't) and then do Lawful Good choice - so one of the rare times when Kingdom Management works right, i.e. produces extra content and some roleplay + not terrible bonus.

Oh well,i do chose the person to solve events by what points i need. When i see an espionage option i always go for it.