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

[Shadenuat]

wat does it have to do with difficulty even

I mean if Kinetic can destroy things solo/not solo/highest difficulty it gets even more exacerbated on lower difficulties.

 

[Sykar]

wat does it have to do with difficulty even

I mean if Kinetic can destroy things solo/not solo/highest difficulty it gets even more exacerbated on lower difficulties.

It means I care little if there is a class which is stronger or weaker than the others. I mentioned the difficulty to show my preference, that's it.

 

[glass blackbird]

wat does it have to do with difficulty even

I mean if Kinetic can destroy things solo/not solo/highest difficulty it gets even more exacerbated on lower difficulties.

Lower difficulties actually make wizards better since their spells are less likely to get saved against.

 

[Shadenuat]

wizards are powerful on all difficulties.

but they're more than just press autocast.

 

[glass blackbird]

Well, it's true that Sirocco is boring and overpowered on all difficulties, but some of the more situational and interesting spells work too

 

[Shadenuat]

also on most difficulties, provided you stack DC and debuff enemies.

it's just that sometimes casters and party should support each other, instead of wizord just stomping everything with no help.

 

[Luckmann]

Only in the sense flanking is much easier than it is on the tabletop.

But to be fair, that's the whole difficulty with sneak attacks, and removing that factor makes getting sneak attacks utterly trivial, not to mention other flanking bonuses. Yeah, sneak attacks have always been nasty, but they've been "balanced" by forcing you to do awkward shit, and let's not get into the bullshit you have to go through to get it consistently with ranged attacks.

I still have nightmares about a hasted magus pirate we fought in Strange Aeons AP who had 5 attacks with 5d6 sneak dice on each. He was only CR8.

 

[Shadenuat]

I still like backstab in IE games more, roleplay wise and tactics / balance wise.

 

[Luckmann]

Of course, you can't actually flank a guy using a ranged weapon in the PnP game

In 3.5 you can, but you'll get hit with the book if you do. Which is a pity, because it's one of the few ways to get consistent sneak attacks with ranged weapons.

I know some people actually house rule on the tabletop so sneak attack damage only applies to primary attacks, I've always found that overly harsh on melee sneak attackers.

Personally, I'd have just made it so you couldn't get sneak dice on secondary natural attacks. Probably a fairer way of balancing some of the retarded sneak builds.

Really, they shouldn't overlap in a problematic manner unless you're playing with cookie-cutting optimizetards, at which point it's easier to just kick them from the group or something, instead of coming up with ways to plug holes that would never become an issue in a normal game.

 

[ArchAngel]

In my first run I destroyed everyone in endgame with no to little minmaxing using Deadly Earth and Kineticist. In my 2nd run I had a fully minmaxed Necro using Wail of Banshee on anyone that it could work on. Too often the spell would not kill its targets even if they failed the save. I only had a couple of Wails before needing to rest, I had unlimited Deadly Earths. Kineticists are to wizards what wizards are to fighters.
But I will admit that at end game Wizards become more useful than Alchemists.
Alchemists are more useful and powerful since lvl 1 up to the endgame.

 

[Luckmann]

I still do not understand why they even included the kineticist. The issues with the class is obvious, especially in a CRPG context where damage-dealing is so important and the narrative powers of other classes cannot even manifest properly. But more than that, there's a wealth of much more interesting classes that could've been included with far less hassle, such as the Witch, Bloodrager, Oracle, Summoner, or even Shifter.

 

[glass blackbird]

Yeah, it's also worth pointing out that to get a powerful wizard on high difficulties you need to carefully select feats and evaluate spells, and to get a more-or-less equally-powerful kineticist you need to be playing a kineticist

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I still do not understand why they even included the kineticist. The issues with the class is obvious, especially in a CRPG context where damage-dealing is so important and the narrative powers of other classes cannot even manifest properly. But more than that, there's a wealth of much more interesting classes that could've been included with far less hassle, such as the Witch, Bloodrager, Oracle, Summoner, or even Shifter.

They're saving those for upcoming dlc

 

[ArchAngel]

Yeah, it's also worth pointing out that to get a powerful wizard on high difficulties you need to carefully select feats and evaluate spells, and to get a more-or-less equally-powerful kineticist you need to be playing a kineticist

For the wizard you also need access to Metamagic rods, the good ones. And as soon as you used them up, your wizard is now half as effective.

 

[Shadenuat]

In my first run I destroyed everyone in endgame with no to little minmaxing using Deadly Earth and Kineticist. In my 2nd run I had a fully minmaxed Necro using Wail of Banshee on anyone that it could work on. Too often the spell would not kill its targets even if they failed the save. I only had a couple of Wails before needing to rest, I had unlimited Deadly Earths. Kineticists are to wizards what wizards are to fighters.
But I will admit that at end game Wizards become more useful than Alchemists.
Alchemists are more useful and powerful since lvl 1 up to the endgame.

they did dis with all necromancy. 10 damage/level. meh. balanced.

even in PnP wh Monarch has more than 300 hp.

but at least Withering is still good with +sneak on summer golems.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

I think it probably came down to the fact that whoever was calling the shots likes playing kineticists. It really doesn’t make sense from any other angle.

 

[Shadenuat]

yeah one of leads is kinetic lover

earth air avatar muh ass.

 

[glass blackbird]

Kineticist powers are also really awkward to use given the interface in the game. They have so many modals and toggles and things to handle all the stuff you declare when attacking; it can obviously be handled but it's clearly not really suited for this kind of combat. There's a lot of other classes that would maybe be a bit more unique and also fit better with how their game works, imo

 

[deuxhero]

The swapping of the sisters helps kineticist a good deal (You can take Blue Flame on one and have the other focus on hurting things that are immune to fire), but it is indeed a class with lots of issues, many of which are much worse in a video game. At the same time it's also the most unique first party class that could remotely be added to a video game properly. Maybe Summoner if you made the Eidolon a companion, but that would still lose a lot of customization options.

 

[Shadenuat]

You don't need to micro Kinetics much if you really know what are you doing (like knowing that elemental blast targets touch AC and thus you want it most of the time).

The sisters are one of the more unique companion concepts actually happened in RPGs recently, imo they're more interesting than class itself, although class does compliment their story nicely.

 

[Cael]

Of course, you can't actually flank a guy using a ranged weapon in the PnP game

In 3.5 you can, but you'll get hit with the book if you do. Which is a pity, because it's one of the few ways to get consistent sneak attacks with ranged weapons.

You don't have a threaten area with a ranged weapon. You can't flank with one, unless you belong to one of maybe two PrCs in the entire library of splatbooks.

 

[deuxhero]

There is one thing that is inaccurate (but a good change) to ranged sneak attacks/flanking is that the bold doesn't apply

The rogue’s attack deals extra damage anytime her target would be denied a Dexterity bonus to AC (whether the target actually has a Dexterity bonus or not), or when the rogue flanks her target

Instead the game only requires the target be flanked (using the game's very loose definition of "flanked"). This allows a rogue to sneak attack people flanked by two allies, which makes ranged sneak attacks actually usable so long as the party has two melee fighters (counting ACs and summons that's trivial in a six person party).

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Kinetics can be balanced simply by number tweak on Burn I guess? Make it so the powerful AoE,CC, or heal are locked behind Burn cost and make Burn penalties actually worth considering a tactical decision when using Kinetics.

For Alchemist just limit the bombs repertoire, and maybe have different amount of bombs for different type of bombs. If the limit to bombs are small enough maybe increase the impact to balance it out. Make it so that instead of bombs being a "default attack" for Alchemist, they instead are more of "readily available spells in a bottle."

 

[Cael]

There is one thing that is inaccurate (but a good change) to ranged sneak attacks/flanking is that the bold doesn't apply

The rogue’s attack deals extra damage anytime her target would be denied a Dexterity bonus to AC (whether the target actually has a Dexterity bonus or not), or when the rogue flanks her target

Instead the game only requires the target be flanked (using the game's very loose definition of "flanked"). This allows a rogue to sneak attack people flanked by two allies, which makes ranged sneak attacks actually usable so long as the party has two melee fighters (counting ACs and summons that's trivial in a six person party).

That is not a good thing. It basically makes everyone who uses hp damage as the main damage of choice want sneak attack, which is stupid in the extreme. Dipping in rogue or any class that gives sneak attack becomes practically a given. That is retarded game design.

 

[deuxhero]

If the studio's next project is another AP adaptation (which they should. It would be horrible if this engine is made for just one game) wonder what one it could be. I'd say War for the Crown (social systems that are utterly impossible to do in a video game, plus clusterfuck in general) and Ruins of Azlant (a lot of it is underwater) are right out. Rise of the Runelords, Curse of the Crimson Throne and Carrion Crown are all considered good APs, but they're far too linear for a video game.

Iron Gods is unconventional and would offend the serious business types, but likely the easiest since the area is largely untamed while the only thing stopping the PCs from walking up to the ultimate bad guys after chapter 1 is the sheer power gap (meaning you could plausibly have an open world). Skulls and Shackles might be doable, it has some issues (bad naval combat rules, plot disconnect) but they're fixable. Hell's Rebels has big points in favor and opposition: On one hand it's easy to add stuff in and make less linear (it all takes place in one city the PCs are expected to be fond of and they're expected to run rebellion operations all over it), but on the other it depends a lot on encouraging creative action from the PCs and expects PCs to have some finesse.

Of course they could also do an original plot.

There is one thing that is inaccurate (but a good change) to ranged sneak attacks/flanking is that the bold doesn't apply

The rogue’s attack deals extra damage anytime her target would be denied a Dexterity bonus to AC (whether the target actually has a Dexterity bonus or not), or when the rogue flanks her target

Instead the game only requires the target be flanked (using the game's very loose definition of "flanked"). This allows a rogue to sneak attack people flanked by two allies, which makes ranged sneak attacks actually usable so long as the party has two melee fighters (counting ACs and summons that's trivial in a six person party).

That is not a good thing. It basically makes everyone who uses hp damage as the main damage of choice want sneak attack, which is stupid in the extreme. Dipping in rogue or any class that gives sneak attack becomes practically a given. That is retarded game design.

I said the fact that the rogue doesn't have to be one of the flanking parties was a good thing, not the loose definition of flanking. Makes no sense that a character can be struggling to focus on two enemies on opposite sides of him, but is just fine against a third enemy attacking in the middle of those two.