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

[Desiderius]

My MC Hospitaler is more or less locked in for eleven levels so she can be death-proof for Vordokai and Amiri is going Defender of the True World Druid at least that far. Tristan gets a ranger lvl or two for a decent reach weapon and a freebooter finger but otherwise is locked in as is Octavia until AT10, Reg until Scion13, and Jaethal until Inq8.

Death-proof for Vordakai? What?

Beguiling Immunity is a nice ability but I'm not sure it's worth 9 levels of Druid unless you're already a Druid.

Delaying Tristan's casting just to get... a weapon proficiency and a mini-bard song against one target?

Check what Hospitalers get instead of Mark of Justice. Way less headaches for both the Vordokai chapter and Armag’s Tomb.

Tristan whacking with a glaive is one more flanker to trigger outflank and all those mini-bard songs stack.

I'm too lazy to check.

Immune to death, aura of + 4 saves vs.

 

[Shadenuat]

My MC Hospitaler is more or less locked in for eleven levels so she can be death-proof

Cleric or Inquisitor with Communal or if you want to be exotic and all, Reposte domain is a lot better character for this.

 

[Yosharian]

My MC Hospitaler is more or less locked in for eleven levels so she can be death-proof for Vordokai and Amiri is going Defender of the True World Druid at least that far. Tristan gets a ranger lvl or two for a decent reach weapon and a freebooter finger but otherwise is locked in as is Octavia until AT10, Reg until Scion13, and Jaethal until Inq8.

Death-proof for Vordakai? What?

Beguiling Immunity is a nice ability but I'm not sure it's worth 9 levels of Druid unless you're already a Druid.

Delaying Tristan's casting just to get... a weapon proficiency and a mini-bard song against one target?

Check what Hospitalers get instead of Mark of Justice. Way less headaches for both the Vordokai chapter and Armag’s Tomb.

Tristan whacking with a glaive is one more flanker to trigger outflank and all those mini-bard songs stack.

I'm too lazy to check.

Immune to death, aura of + 4 saves vs.

Just use Death Ward? Meh.

 

[Desiderius]

My MC Hospitaler is more or less locked in for eleven levels so she can be death-proof

Cleric or Inquisitor with Communal or if you want to be exotic and all, Reposte domain is a lot better character for this.

The whole playthrough is predicated on a Hospitaler main. One of the benefits is not needing a cleric. Ekun is getting communal (8 levels of Sacred Huntmaster to give Doggo some teamwork feats).

 

[Desiderius]

My MC Hospitaler is more or less locked in for eleven levels so she can be death-proof for Vordokai and Amiri is going Defender of the True World Druid at least that far. Tristan gets a ranger lvl or two for a decent reach weapon and a freebooter finger but otherwise is locked in as is Octavia until AT10, Reg until Scion13, and Jaethal until Inq8.

Death-proof for Vordakai? What?

Beguiling Immunity is a nice ability but I'm not sure it's worth 9 levels of Druid unless you're already a Druid.

Delaying Tristan's casting just to get... a weapon proficiency and a mini-bard song against one target?

Check what Hospitalers get instead of Mark of Justice. Way less headaches for both the Vordokai chapter and Armag’s Tomb.

Tristan whacking with a glaive is one more flanker to trigger outflank and all those mini-bard songs stack.

I'm too lazy to check.

Immune to death, aura of + 4 saves vs.

Just use Death Ward? Meh.

Too short duration. Not AoE. Extended Archons go in those slots.

 

[Desiderius]

Tristan comes with extend metamagic. Archon’s Aura is -2 aoe debuff that stacks with everything and hits dudes that are immune to much else. It’s like another layer of shaken.

Tristan comes along for V Tomb for plot reasons.

 

[Zevitu]

Tristan comes with extend metamagic. Archon’s Aura is -2 aoe debuff that stacks with everything and hits dudes that are immune to much else. It’s like another layer of shaken.

Tristan comes along for V Tomb for plot reasons.

You can tell him no, but he shows up at a specific point.

 

[Luckmann]

If you take a single level of Cleric so you have two domains, does Inquisitor actually contribute to domain abilities/effects of both domains in PF:K? Because in the tabletop it does. Just something that occurred to me.

 

[Ainamacar]

Good question. Quickly made a Cleric10/Inquisitor10 of Abadar with the Protection and Nobility domains, and it looks like Inquisitor levels apply to both domains.

Protection was automatically selected as the Inquisitor domain at level up, probably because it was the first Cleric domain I chose. The character got the full +5 resistance bonus as per a level 20 cleric, no surprise. The duration of the Nobility abilities are 1/2 your level in the class that gives you the domain. So if only the cleric levels count it should last 30 s, while if the inquisitor levels also count it should be 60 s. Both Nobility abilities lasted 60 s, so there you go.

Also, the "Resistant Touch" Protection ability to grant another character removes the bonus from the caster, but doesn't actually grant it to the creature touched. F11, I will be with you soon.

Edit: To clarify, an Inquisitor19/Cleric1 in Kingmaker doesn't get the advanced (e.g. level 8) abilities of the 2nd domain, just improvements to whatever abilities it already had from that domain. So it looks like an eclectic interpretation of the PnP rules.

 

[Lawntoilet]

So I'm looking to fire up Kingmaker for another playthrough now that the DLCs are out and want to check our TB mode.

How's the combat and stability of Turn-Based? Any other "must-have" mods (maybe Eldritch Arcana, Advanced Martial Arts, Crafting?) and how do they change some of the good builds from when the game was released? I kinda want to run some kind of Magus (preferably a vanilla Magus) if the TB mod helps micromanage those better.

 

[Haplo]

Turn Based mod is pretty great. No stability issues. Makes the game much less chaotic and much more tactical. Be warned however that it also does make the game a lot easier.

Must haves? Not really. But if you want to play a magus (and particularly vanilla magus), I strongly recommend Eldritch Arcana (the updated fork from Github, as the original author seems to have abandoned it). It's great for casters in general.

Advanced Martial Arts has that kinda OP Trait, that let's you substitute Int for Cha for Persuasion checks. Crafting... well, I prefer not to upset the itemization balance too much. I use it - but exclusively to craft Lead Blades Wands for my SS.

Not sure the TB mod makes playing a magus all that different (unless you do more then buff & spellstrike... but a typical magus won't have high spell DCs). Sure makes a world of a difference for dedicated casters, though. And makes Standard actions (KK Kinetic Blade Whirlwind!, Cleave, Vital Strike and... spells) a lot more valuable.

Personally I prefer Sword Saints, a vanilla magus will have AC issues and will need to sit in the back row a big part of the game. Much more prone to spell interruption from AoOs that way also.
To be fair, he can spam A LOT of Shocking Grasps (which are very potent early-to-mid game - if you use Eldritch Arcana Intensified Spell metamagics).

I've described a SS build here, if you're interested:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...nd-strats-thread.124160/page-114#post-6121550

 

[Lawntoilet]

Snip

Hey thanks a lot for the recommendations, it's very helpful.
I just like the versatility of vanilla Magus with all the arcana you get and the level 19 expanded spell selection, it really appeals to me.

Also, apparently itemization has changed a bit - is it enough to make much of a difference, though? Are scimitars still the Good Shit for a non-Exotic Weapon Magus?

One more question, too - is it still possible to

Spoiler

save both Amiri and Tristian, and complete both of their final quests?

I remember being able to do that on my first playthrough but then it was supposedly patched out (with a very justification from Owlcat).

 

[Haplo]

Well, if the expanded spell selection is a big deal for you, Eldiritch Arcana has both Spell Blending Arcana (for up to 2 extra mage spells known) and Extra Arcana feats.
A Sword Saint does have pretty major feat savings with free weapon focus, as well as Int based increased number of attacks of opportunity, Improved Critical confirmation, boosted initiative.

I haven't been a fan of scimitars for a long time. They have shitty base damage and that's quite important here. Generally I prefer longswords. However for a vanilla magus focused on Spellstrike, who absolutely can't afford exotic profi, I guess they are passable.

You can save Amiri and Tristan no problem. Just go after Amiri first. Although that's maybe not absolutely necessary.

 

[jazzotron]

I second the turn-based mod - playing through with it at the moment and the current version is rock-solid with QoL features such as displaying attack range and movement distances of the current character.

I'd also get the Cleaner mod to reduce savegame bloat that becomes noticeable from Varnhold onwards (it allows you to delete corpses and junk from an area once you're done with it).

 

[Haplo]

Gotta love this

 

[deuxhero]

Turn based mod is great.

Playing more Varnhold's Lot. The greatest weakness of this game and Varnhold's lot is the really limited bestiary and insistance on spamming the most annoying monsters it has. In the base game this is Primal creatures (20% miss chance), in Varnhold's Lot this is slimes (immune to basicly everything while being a huge chunk of HP).

As for Varnhold's lot progress, got to the Centaur dying to the mimic. Is it almost over? I'm so fucking tired of these slimes. Really annoying to lose your wizard after getting a bunch of items that make him really crazy (who else was supposed to get the amulet of old age?).

 

[Cryomancer]

My caster level is 20, the icy prison should have an STR check of 38 with my feats, but by some unknow reason, the DC is just 33, that means that an ancient red dragon(STR = 39 / bns = + 14) can break free with good rolls but i should be able to paralyze him without any chance of freeing himself... Is the +caster level capped at caster level = 15, even for the icy prison, mass(tier 9 spell)???

 

[Lawntoilet]

Well, if the expanded spell selection is a big deal for you, Eldiritch Arcana has both Spell Blending Arcana (for up to 2 extra mage spells known) and Extra Arcana feats.
A Sword Saint does have pretty major feat savings with free weapon focus, as well as Int based increased number of attacks of opportunity, Improved Critical confirmation, boosted initiative.

I haven't been a fan of scimitars for a long time. They have shitty base damage and that's quite important here. Generally I prefer longswords. However for a vanilla magus focused on Spellstrike, who absolutely can't afford exotic profi, I guess they are passable.

You can save Amiri and Tristan no problem. Just go after Amiri first. Although that's maybe not absolutely necessary.

Is the base damage a big deal strictly because of Vital Strike? I thought scimitars were decent because of the Runic swords and the Bear God sword, and the big crit range for Spellstriking.

So if you go after Amiri first you can still trigger Tristian's quest with the cultists and save him at the House on the Edge of Time? That's what worked for me in my playthrough but I had read in some patch notes that saving Amiri first will now lock out the final cultist quest.

I second the turn-based mod - playing through with it at the moment and the current version is rock-solid with QoL features such as displaying attack range and movement distances of the current character.

I'd also get the Cleaner mod to reduce savegame bloat that becomes noticeable from Varnhold onwards (it allows you to delete corpses and junk from an area once you're done with it).

Awesome, thanks for reminding me of that.

 

[Yosharian]

My caster level is 20, the icy prison should have an STR check of 38 with my feats, but by some unknow reason, the DC is just 33, that means that an ancient red dragon(STR = 39 / bns = + 14) can break free with good rolls but i should be able to paralyze him without any chance of freeing himself... Is the +caster level capped at caster level = 15, even for the icy prison, mass(tier 9 spell)???

Maybe there's some kind of size modifier at play?

Try casting the spell on a different target, is it the same?

 

[deuxhero]

Lawntoilet
Scimitars are good because of their crit range (15-20 with keen/improved critical) and the fact that spellstrike gives the spell the weapon's crit range but not its crit multiplier. That they actually have common magic weapons, many aimed at magi, is just a bonus.

 

[Lawntoilet]

Lawntoilet
Scimitars are good because of their crit range (15-20 with keen/improved critical) and the fact that spellstrike gives the spell the weapon's crit range but not its crit multiplier. That they actually have common magic weapons, many aimed at magi, is just a bonus.

Yes that's what I thought, so I don't know why someone would use a longsword instead of a scimitar (except for GVS maybe)

 

[Yosharian]

There are plenty of reasons to use other weapons, though. Being dex-based, for example. Or if the character is a monk.

 

[deuxhero]

Lawntoilet
Scimitars are good because of their crit range (15-20 with keen/improved critical) and the fact that spellstrike gives the spell the weapon's crit range but not its crit multiplier. That they actually have common magic weapons, many aimed at magi, is just a bonus.

Yes that's what I thought, and why I don't know why someone would use a longsword instead (except for GVS maybe)

Because 15-20 is MUCH better than a keen/imp crit longsword's 17-20. In exchange for half the crit range, you get one point of extra damage on average, which is a poor trade.

 

[Cryomancer]

One thing that i miss from old D&D is that plate armor gives an better AC against slashing than blunt weapons...

 

[deuxhero]

Finished Varnhold's Lot. That was a really lame final boss. It was stuck useless in a stinking cloud the entire fight but I spent several turns trying hit to it its massive AC (and that's after I prebuffed). Ultimately resorted to pulling a scroll of improved invisibility from my bag and buffing one of my Magus MC... who then crit and one shot the thing anyways.