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

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I always wanted a game where strategic management is delegated to separate system. Something like if you could delegate some of spell slots to daily buffs which are cast on rest and use up ingredients or something like that.

That's certainly one area Arcanum got things right. Maintaing buffs lowered your maximum mana while active. Simple, effective, fair. D&D's rules aren't really amendable to that kind of solution. If I were to come up with some house rules on the fly....

• Concentration lasts indefinitely (No 10 minute cap).
• Any spell with a duration other than instant may be concentrated.
• Every spell concentrated beyond the first incurs a -2 penalty to the character's primary casting attribute while being concentrated.

 

[Sykar]

I guess this is the new single-hit damage record:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1836002129

Astral Projection seems to have taken my lessons to heart

Just out of curiosity how would you rank the classes among each other at the moment in terms of balance?

Hmm... sorcerors and wizards are certainly top tier... as well as well-built kineticists. Though I would rate kineticists a bit lower, as they are far less versatile and frankly... kinda boring.

Below them I guess Vivisectionists (and perhaps Alchemists in general) and Sword Saints (with other magus archetypes lagging a bit behind).
I'd not rank clerics or druids quite as high. They are okay, but not great, I'd say. About on-par with Bards in general usefulness, I guess (though not having a cleric will hurt more then not having a bard).
Then the martials:
Fighter ~ Ranger ~ Slayer > Barbarian > Paladin (although Hospitaler can provide nice support)

Not sure where to put monks and rogues. Both are great multiclass additions, but don't convince me as single class. Probably bottom of the food chain, along with Inquisitors. With the caveat that they offer highly useful stuff for other classes. Particularly the ultimate defense cheese in this game - the infamous 1 level monk dip.

Would this change with Eldritch Arcana, Call of the Wild and Advanced Martial Arts mod installed?

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Try to turn off AA.

Maybe you can try and download the cleaner mod. It seems to me stutters were caused by leftover corpses and loot in areas. Cleaner mod allows you to delete all leftover loot forever if you wish so and by using the mod-menu you can also delete the corpses. It helped me a lot with the stutters as the game progresses.

Tried both of these solutions. No luck. But thanks for suggesting.

Cleaner mod didn't work well mid game because it only cleans up the area when you tell it to do it. So all the past area you visit still has all the junk loot you left behind.

Though I doubt start from the beginning is a good choices either...

I did start a new campaign actually, and with Cleaner mod installed from the get go. It didn't help me. This is probably a CPU related optimization issue, though even that I'm not sure of. All i know is that my hardware is under-utilized wih the game stuttering, and getting worse as the campaign goes on. Nothing helps to improve it either. Clearing memory, restarting, setting cpu affinity, mods etc. It's a complete mystery. I know the devs are aware of the issue according ot some reddit posts, but so far no fix.

On a brighter note, Mask of the Betrayer is turning out to be really awesome.

 

[Sergiu64]

No. PoE got that wrong, too. That choice was a convenience feature for lazy encounter design and poor AI disguised as reducing drudgery for the player. Right now PF:KM is working as designed. It's testing your endurance and attrition. If resting is risky enough to threaten ruin for your party, it suggests that you're over-extended yourself and either need to find safer locations or reserve some of your spells/resources as insurance for when you do rest in dangerous territory. This is the real kind of C&C we need it games.

The real C&C of either exposing player to risk, or making him waste the time to going back to town in order to rest safely? There is no clear way to tell with PF:KM where these safer locations are. I guess I like how ToEE evil did it: there was an indicator in places where you would be able to board your party in a room and rest safely and where you'd risk being attacked while resting.

An alternative that could be something that a MMO I played once had: most buffs were concentration based - you'd have a limited Concentration capacity and you'd cast the buffs until that capacity was filled. Those buffs would continue until you dismissed them or you died. Less clicks and also allowed your characters to be something better than just Buff bots. My current party includes a Priest of Erastil who only has buff spells for example. She buffs everyone once, and is mostly useless archer afterwards (well she also does that burst heal sometimes).

Oh well, at least this game has the buffs actually last closer to real time periods. Not like NWN where you had buffs that were supposed to last for hours and instead would run out in a few minutes.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

KOTC did it write with buffing. If you want to buff - you need to spend your combat rounds doing it. Which means you have to make a choice - you can start fight with direct damage like fireballs, some debuff like web or throw a buff..

 

[Sergiu64]

KOTC did it write with buffing. If you want to buff - you need to spend your combat rounds doing it. Which means you have to make a choice - you can start fight with direct damage like fireballs, some debuff like web or throw a buff..

Yes, that's better - but of course the buffs in D&D are not balanced around that as some a clearly designed to give minor bonuses for hours and the bonuses they give are too minor to waste a round and a spell slot on.

 

[deama]

Guys, does the turn based mod allow you to increase your action/movement point pool or is it a set amount?

 

[biggestboss]

I think I'm going to finally buckle down and play through this game now that there's a turn based mod.

My general playstyle is to use the companions given if they are available instead of rolling my own toons, so I was just wondering if there is a general role (fighter, talker, thief, spellcaster, etc.) that the main PC should excel at that isn't covered by other companions' skills and abilities. Also, if a companion is ugly and/or annoying, they won't be allowed in the party so their respective roles are also acceptable to be taken by the main PC.

 

[Sergiu64]

My general playstyle is to use the companions given if they are available instead of rolling my own toons, so I was just wondering if there is a general role (fighter, talker, thief, spellcaster, etc.) that the main PC should excel at that isn't covered by other companions' skills and abilities. Also, if a companion is ugly and/or annoying, they won't be allowed in the party so their respective roles are also acceptable to be taken by the main PC.

I guess there are no druids and monks or paladins... Most companions should really be switched to other classes as soon as you get the chance however... so its not like they're tied to their starting archtypes. I think your main character is your chance to have a well designed build from the very start.

 

[Shadenuat]

I always gravitate towards full arcane caster since there is only one companion who can really fill the role and she's CG.

Guys, does the turn based mod allow you to increase your action/movement point pool or is it a set amount?

Uhh
should it? I think it follows pnp?

 

[ArchAngel]

My general playstyle is to use the companions given if they are available instead of rolling my own toons, so I was just wondering if there is a general role (fighter, talker, thief, spellcaster, etc.) that the main PC should excel at that isn't covered by other companions' skills and abilities. Also, if a companion is ugly and/or annoying, they won't be allowed in the party so their respective roles are also acceptable to be taken by the main PC.

I guess there are no druids and monks or paladins... Most companions should really be switched to other classes as soon as you get the chance however... so its not like they're tied to their starting archtypes. I think your main character is your chance to have a well designed build from the very start.

Also no pure wizards or sorcerers.

 

[ArchAngel]

No. PoE got that wrong, too. That choice was a convenience feature for lazy encounter design and poor AI disguised as reducing drudgery for the player. Right now PF:KM is working as designed. It's testing your endurance and attrition. If resting is risky enough to threaten ruin for your party, it suggests that you're over-extended yourself and either need to find safer locations or reserve some of your spells/resources as insurance for when you do rest in dangerous territory. This is the real kind of C&C we need it games.

The real C&C of either exposing player to risk, or making him waste the time to going back to town in order to rest safely? There is no clear way to tell with PF:KM where these safer locations are. I guess I like how ToEE evil did it: there was an indicator in places where you would be able to board your party in a room and rest safely and where you'd risk being attacked while resting.

An alternative that could be something that a MMO I played once had: most buffs were concentration based - you'd have a limited Concentration capacity and you'd cast the buffs until that capacity was filled. Those buffs would continue until you dismissed them or you died. Less clicks and also allowed your characters to be something better than just Buff bots. My current party includes a Priest of Erastil who only has buff spells for example. She buffs everyone once, and is mostly useless archer afterwards (well she also does that burst heal sometimes).

Oh well, at least this game has the buffs actually last closer to real time periods. Not like NWN where you had buffs that were supposed to last for hours and instead would run out in a few minutes.

If it was clear what safe locations were than it would be pointless.

And there is no need to do crazy buffing. Extended Good Hope, Communal Delay Poison and extended Shield and Mirror Image for your squishes.

 

[Sergiu64]

If it was clear what safe locations were than it would be pointless.

And there is no need to do crazy buffing. Extended Good Hope, Communal Delay Poison and extended Shield and Mirror Image for your squishes.

The problem seems to be that non-squishes become squishy when they don't have Shield+Blur+ Mirror Image up. Then there's stuff like Str/Dex/Int/Sta buffs. Sure I don't need them all on everybody. But my dex sword saint makes very good use of both dex and int, octavia is better with int up and she has so few hitpoints that Sta helps too. Rest make good use of Str. Then freedom of movement. Barkskin on some characters. Enlarge Person (at least there is communal at this point). Octavia takes aid. My Sword Saint needs Armor. Everyone with melee Expeditious Retreat or Turn based movement is glacial.

Its all fine if I had to do all that once, but I tend to need it a couple of times per map...

 

[gurugeorge]

To me one of the absolute best things about the TB mod for P:K is that you can switch in and out of it. So sometimes it's fun to "wind 'em up and watch 'em go" with trash mobs, then settle down to a nice cup of coffee and a snack, and a lot of beard-stroking, for the meatier combats.

The one thing that annoys me about Deadfire is that the TB option is set in stone for the whole game when you start it. (At least, so far as I know. Is there any way of dipping in and out?)

I gather that's because the Deadfire developers think you have to have different rules for TB than for RTWP, and I've heard that said lots of times on forums and the like. But is it really true? Perhaps you need some slight adjustments, but these are computers we're dealing with, with more processing power than it took to get to the moon. Can't they switch on the fly, and do whatever calculations are necessary on the fly?

For me, it's always been the case that I've loved BOTH aspects of these games. I loved fiddling around with the AI rules in DA:O, just to see whether my little team had the brains to look after themselves in average combats. There is a kind of pleasure in pretending they're creatures with their own minds and observing their antics.

But I also like to get down and dirty and canvass all options in an unhurried state of mind.

I want it all. Is that so bad?

 

[ArchAngel]

If it was clear what safe locations were than it would be pointless.

And there is no need to do crazy buffing. Extended Good Hope, Communal Delay Poison and extended Shield and Mirror Image for your squishes.

The problem seems to be that non-squishes become squishy when they don't have Shield+Blur+ Mirror Image up. Then there's stuff like Str/Dex/Int/Sta buffs. Sure I don't need them all on everybody. But my dex sword saint makes very good use of both dex and int, octavia is better with int up and she has so few hitpoints that Sta helps too. Rest make good use of Str. Then freedom of movement. Barkskin on some characters. Enlarge Person (at least there is communal at this point). Octavia takes aid. My Sword Saint needs Armor. Everyone with melee Expeditious Retreat or Turn based movement is glacial.

Its all fine if I had to do all that once, but I tend to need it a couple of times per map...

You really don't need any of that. If you are in extra tough battle you can cast a buff on one of your melee guys. Stat buffs are gained by wearing stat buffing equipment, those are plenty and it does not stack with stat buffing spells.
Freedom of movement is only useful in rare few levels or if you want to move through your own Web casts. Barkskin lasts so long it is cast once and forget until next rest (also not useful for everyone as you got natural armor amulets and they don't stack). Enlarge Person is useful but also not required. You can tell that character to attack last and enemies will mostly ignore him (unless new ones join that cannot reach others in melee). Unless you are using Enlarge for bonus damage but it does not give such a big bonus, I never needed or really used it for that purpose. You don't get any hit bonus and you lose 2 AC. And you gain on average 2 or 3 damage. Expeditious Retreat with Turn Based, well that is not the problem of the game but TB mod. I only ever needed to cast Expedition Retreat once, when fighting those Soul demons solo so I can kite them. For tougher battles I cast Haste on round 1 and that is better than precasting Expeditious Retreat.

 

[Cryomancer]

I'm a little surprised - but I do think PoE's got it right with prohibiting pre-buffing. The constant buffing I have to do in this game is annoying to all hells. Like the power difference between being fully buffed and not buffed at all is gigantic. With buffs I just do encounter after encounter without taking much damage, but the second those wear out or worse - I get attacked while resting - I might actually lose people to encounters of the same magnitude.

Wrong. This limitation makes no sense and some buffs due long casting time, like an full round was meant to be used before combat. If you are that dependent to buffs, you should lower the difficulty or see what you are doing wrong. And keep in mind hat supernatural powers are far more deadly on pfk. Imagine entering an encounter with wild hunt without time to cast freedom of movement and in the first round, the guy who can cast it fail his save.... You lost.

 

[Desiderius]

don't play pets and all buffs you will need is good hope + bard song and tank recasting mirror image, haste for harder encounters (my standard routine). don't build heavy micro classes and avoid 1 minute buff dips. use Extend wand for Enlarge.

many players overbuff without realising their things do not stack or use incorrect buffs when they could have stacked more.

I always wanted a game where strategic management is delegated to separate system. Something like if you could delegate some of spell slots to daily buffs which are cast on rest and use up ingredients or something like that.

Took me a while to realize it but pets are the big buff sink. It’s like you have to recast their equipment all the time.

Other than those, there are a lot of very long duration buffs that make a nice difference, and even the extended minute/lvl party stuff isn’t too oppressive by lvl 10. I steer clear of round/lvl.

 

[Desiderius]

If it was clear what safe locations were than it would be pointless.

And there is no need to do crazy buffing. Extended Good Hope, Communal Delay Poison and extended Shield and Mirror Image for your squishes.

The problem seems to be that non-squishes become squishy when they don't have Shield+Blur+ Mirror Image up. Then there's stuff like Str/Dex/Int/Sta buffs. Sure I don't need them all on everybody. But my dex sword saint makes very good use of both dex and int, octavia is better with int up and she has so few hitpoints that Sta helps too. Rest make good use of Str. Then freedom of movement. Barkskin on some characters. Enlarge Person (at least there is communal at this point). Octavia takes aid. My Sword Saint needs Armor. Everyone with melee Expeditious Retreat or Turn based movement is glacial.

Its all fine if I had to do all that once, but I tend to need it a couple of times per map...

You really don't need any of that. If you are in extra tough battle you can cast a buff on one of your melee guys. Stat buffs are gained by wearing stat buffing equipment, those are plenty and it does not stack with stat buffing spells.
Freedom of movement is only useful in rare few levels or if you want to move through your own Web casts. Barkskin lasts so long it is cast once and forget until next rest (also not useful for everyone as you got natural armor amulets and they don't stack). Enlarge Person is useful but also not required. You can tell that character to attack last and enemies will mostly ignore him (unless new ones join that cannot reach others in melee). Unless you are using Enlarge for bonus damage but it does not give such a big bonus, I never needed or really used it for that purpose. You don't get any hit bonus and you lose 2 AC. And you gain on average 2 or 3 damage. Expeditious Retreat with Turn Based, well that is not the problem of the game but TB mod. I only ever needed to cast Expedition Retreat once, when fighting those Soul demons solo so I can kite them. For tougher battles I cast Haste on round 1 and that is better than precasting Expeditious Retreat.

Anything that increases speed (greater longstrider ftw) increases range on move actions (like freebooter point) and charge. Hard to overstate how important that is. Any character with move actions (like bard) can use standard action charge to move around the battlefield the same turn.

 

[deuxhero]

I found an emerald. Where is the artisan who wanted it so I can give it to them?

On prebuffing: The game needs an option to automatically apply hour per level buffs after resting and after expiration.

 

[Haplo]

Just out of curiosity how would you rank the classes among each other at the moment in terms of balance?

Hmm... sorcerors and wizards are certainly top tier... as well as well-built kineticists. Though I would rate kineticists a bit lower, as they are far less versatile and frankly... kinda boring.

Below them I guess Vivisectionists (and perhaps Alchemists in general) and Sword Saints (with other magus archetypes lagging a bit behind).
I'd not rank clerics or druids quite as high. They are okay, but not great, I'd say. About on-par with Bards in general usefulness, I guess (though not having a cleric will hurt more then not having a bard).
Then the martials:
Fighter ~ Ranger ~ Slayer > Barbarian > Paladin (although Hospitaler can provide nice support)

Not sure where to put monks and rogues. Both are great multiclass additions, but don't convince me as single class. Probably bottom of the food chain, along with Inquisitors. With the caveat that they offer highly useful stuff for other classes. Particularly the ultimate defense cheese in this game - the infamous 1 level monk dip.

Would this change with Eldritch Arcana, Call of the Wild and Advanced Martial Arts mod installed?

Hm, I don't think it changes all that much. I mean Oracle is possibly the best divine caster. But otherwise EA mostly buffs Arcane casters - mages and maguses. Advanced Martial Arts adds a few more options for fighters. Nothing game breaking, though. Some universal traits, like the OP using Int for Persuasion. Plus opens using other stats for AB (depending on Deity).
Haven't played with Call of the Wild. Bloodrager is apparently decent, probably better then Barbarian, but again, not exactly gamebreaking. Witch is a full Arcane caster, so can't be bad. Doubt it will beat mages, though.

 

[Sergiu64]

Wrong. This limitation makes no sense and some buffs due long casting time, like an full round was meant to be used before combat. If you are that dependent to buffs, you should lower the difficulty or see what you are doing wrong. And keep in mind hat supernatural powers are far more deadly on pfk. Imagine entering an encounter with wild hunt without time to cast freedom of movement and in the first round, the guy who can cast it fail his save.... You lost.

Well, there were some better alternatives mentioned earlier in the thread such as long buffs being concentration things - cast once and the character keeps it up without having to recast them. Would introduce an interesting mechanic where you have to pick and choose which buffs you want to have up as you don't have enough concentration for everything. And... I'm not quite sure I see a problem with that encounter with wild hunt - imagine instead being the monsters and being suddenly jumped but bunch of really buffed up adventurers.

The problem I'm really trying to solve is the amount of clicks. Yes maybe I don't have to cast everything. But even then I have a front line of 3 maguses. Each needs to cast Shield, Mirror Image, Blur, Arcane Weapon and Expeditious Retreat as a minimum. Skip the 1st 3 and I'm eating damage every fight, skip the last one and I'm suffering in Turn Based mode unless haste is on. Not casting Arcane weapon is just silly as a Magus, but at least it seems to be instant cast. All of these a 1 min per level. That's 15 clicks and pauses already with just their self buffs. Add Mirror Image + Expeditious Retreat for Octavia and some health buffs for her + stuff like Bless and that Communal Poison block and you're up to 20. Freedom of Movement is another 3+. Etc. They just need to start respecting the player's time.

 

[Sykar]

I always wanted a game where strategic management is delegated to separate system. Something like if you could delegate some of spell slots to daily buffs which are cast on rest and use up ingredients or something like that.

That's certainly one area Arcanum got things right. Maintaing buffs lowered your maximum mana while active. Simple, effective, fair. D&D's rules aren't really amendable to that kind of solution. If I were to come up with some house rules on the fly....

• Concentration lasts indefinitely (No 10 minute cap).
• Any spell with a duration other than instant may be concentrated.
• Every spell concentrated beyond the first incurs a -2 penalty to the character's primary casting attribute while being concentrated.

Just make a limit like in Arcanum for the amount of spells you can keep up. Starts at 1 and then can be increased with feats and maybe level 10 or so you get a second for free.

 

[santino27]

don't play pets and all buffs you will need is good hope + bard song and tank recasting mirror image, haste for harder encounters (my standard routine). don't build heavy micro classes and avoid 1 minute buff dips. use Extend wand for Enlarge.

many players overbuff without realising their things do not stack or use incorrect buffs when they could have stacked more.

I always wanted a game where strategic management is delegated to separate system. Something like if you could delegate some of spell slots to daily buffs which are cast on rest and use up ingredients or something like that.

Good Hope + Delay Poison communal for half the game + death ward for the other half + mirror image for your tank in a hard fight + prayer + haste/displacement + enlarge , etc.

It's not all always needed, but when it's not up is when you inevitably need it. That said, I tend to walk around with good hope, delay poison, and death ward (extended) on, as the others are short term and fast casting enough to address in battle.

 

[Cryomancer]

Just make a limit like in Arcanum for the amount of spells you can keep up. Starts at 1 and then can be increased with feats and maybe level 10 or so you get a second for free.

This is so mmo-like... IMO no mechanics that aren't on core rules should be in the game.

First is limiting buffs, then summons, then limiting shapechange, them additing cooldowns and making sure that you never miss and ... PfK declined into an generic mmo clone.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Does anyone actually think it's fun or interesting to have to cast a bunch of buffs on your entire party after every time you go to a new map or rest?
If so, do you enjoy eating paint chips?