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

[Desiderius]

MT was a barely useful prestige in D&D 3.5 where classes didn't have class features. In Pathfinder you lose a lot of class features in addition to caster levels when going MT. It is not a good choice for any build. Most pure casters will be better than a MT. And something like a Scroll Savant is better than any MT you can come up with.

There are several classes without much in the way of class features to lose and through much of the game there are more rounds between rests than there are spells in a single spellbook.

There is also the matter of getting more useful touch spells into the Magus spell book* and spontaneously casting whole spellbooks.

* - you can Spellstrike Slay Living with Tristian, for example

Ho hum, another day of negative theorycrafting with the old farts at RPG Codex.

Really does not matter when in this game there are plenty of places and time to rest. That would only be true if resting was severely limited. MT is more useful in PnP where resting is usually much more limited and trying to rest in a dungeon is calling your DM to murder your party.

And why would you go melee with a guy with bad BAB and bad Dex/Strength, he can hardly hit and then to deliver a spell that needs enemy to fail a save so it does any good damage.. for that spell you need to be fully focusing on Wisdom and Spell Focus feats, not melee..

Time is money. Resting ultimately costs you items which are gated behind kingdom ranks. Also lets you keep up food buffs in dungeons.

The difference between 40 STR and 34 STR is a lot smaller than the difference between 16 and 10. STR is by far the easiest stat to get. He has 16 base CHR which is the relevant stat for Spellstrikes. You play most of the game as a conventional Cleric with Mirror Image/Shield and a bigger spell book then move in once he gets his Wings and all the Mental Perfection items. He already has Greater Spell Focus Evocation for Archon’s Aura and his Fire spells.

If it works, I’ll post screenshots. If it doesn’t I’ll admit I’m wrong. It will be a couple weeks or so.

 

[ArchAngel]

MT was a barely useful prestige in D&D 3.5 where classes didn't have class features. In Pathfinder you lose a lot of class features in addition to caster levels when going MT. It is not a good choice for any build. Most pure casters will be better than a MT. And something like a Scroll Savant is better than any MT you can come up with.

There are several classes without much in the way of class features to lose and through much of the game there are more rounds between rests than there are spells in a single spellbook.

There is also the matter of getting more useful touch spells into the Magus spell book* and spontaneously casting whole spellbooks.

* - you can Spellstrike Slay Living with Tristian, for example

Ho hum, another day of negative theorycrafting with the old farts at RPG Codex.

Really does not matter when in this game there are plenty of places and time to rest. That would only be true if resting was severely limited. MT is more useful in PnP where resting is usually much more limited and trying to rest in a dungeon is calling your DM to murder your party.

And why would you go melee with a guy with bad BAB and bad Dex/Strength, he can hardly hit and then to deliver a spell that needs enemy to fail a save so it does any good damage.. for that spell you need to be fully focusing on Wisdom and Spell Focus feats, not melee..

Time is money. Resting ultimately costs you items which are gated behind kingdom ranks. Also lets you keep up food buffs in dungeons.

The difference between 40 STR and 34 STR is a lot smaller than the difference between 16 and 10. STR is by far the easiest stat to get. He has 16 base CHR which is the relevant stat for Spellstrikes. You play most of the game as a conventional Cleric with Mirror Image/Shield and a bigger spell book then move in once he gets his Wings and all the Mental Perfection items. He already has Greater Spell Focus Evocation for Archon’s Aura and his Fire spells.

If it works, I’ll post screenshots. If it doesn’t I’ll admit I’m wrong. It will be a couple weeks or so.

What? You misspelled that. You wanted to write a gimped cleric.

 

[Ensi]

This game is way more fun than PoE. Writing is kinda whatever, but the gameplay is tight and it's way more challenging/rewarding. I'm about to fight the stag lord.

Should I be multi-classing? I haven't done any so far at level 4.

 

[Haplo]

...although the real answer should be: depends. What character class/type are you playing? caster? melee? Does he depend on class abilities / spell levels? Or maybe just whacks things with a big stick?

Melees tend to benefit more from multiclassing, although mages benefit a lot from Arcane Trickster Prestige Class multiclassing for example.

 

[razvedchiki]

Ok since they fixed the dex 1.5 dmg to 2 handers of the rogue with the ee edition (took me 3 months to notice lol) this is my final witcher curved blade build.
Stats are 7/20/10/10/16/7,human.hopefully with dex plus wis plus the various buffs i will be able to tank and deal decent damage.

- 3 unavoidable lvls of rogue for dex to dmg
- 1 lvl of monk for the wis to ac plus crane style
( Yea i know retarded min maxing but its just 1 lvl splash and it gives touch ac plus the penalty for fighting defensively goes to -2).
- rest spawn slayer,studied target plus sneak damage.spawn looses the swift action of studied but many bosses and semi dangerous mobs are large and bigger.

 

[Daidre]

I have a hard time imaging flimsy witcher with 10 CON in the melee.

 

[razvedchiki]

Does it matter? You tank with your ac no?

 

[Daidre]

You are still auto hit with unconfirmed crits from time to time without mirror image and don't even get max roll on your HP die in P:K, it is averaged value so... even my girly mages tend to have at least 14.

 

[ArchAngel]

Does it matter? You tank with your ac no?

Not vs poisons, aoe attacks and similar. But your strength 7 is going to make this character useless until you can get Strenght boosting items (+4 items). You will not be able to carry a chain shirt and your two handed blade without going into medium encumbrance penalties. And Charisma 7 lol. I know roleplaying might not mean much, but still.. who would put a charisma 7 person on the throne...

I would reduce Dex to 18 and raise Con and Str.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

YOu can start with Dex 19 (you get 5 level up points so you still get to 24 and reaching level 20 in ch5 is trivial) and put those points into other stats like CON or at least +1 STR for STR 8.

 

[Delterius]

Does it matter? You tank with your ac no?

Not vs poisons, aoe attacks and similar. But your strength 7 is going to make this character useless until you can get Strenght boosting items (+4 items). You will not be able to carry a chain shirt and your two handed blade without going into medium encumbrance penalties. And Charisma 7 lol. I know roleplaying might not mean much, but still.. who would put a charisma 7 person on the throne...

I would reduce Dex to 18 and raise Con and Str.

On top of that, the moment you try to hold against anything stronger than your level would expect the tank gets one-shotted before you can get one CC spell off.

Speaking of which I want to kill whoever put that boggard champion in chapter 1.

 

[Daidre]

All boggarts have a shitty will save. They are also humanoids so Hold Person and Hideous Laughter do a wonders against them. Low level boggarts in 2 locations next to Oleg's post vulnerable to Daze cantrip of all things.

 

[Delterius]

All boggarts have a shitty will save. They are also humanoids so Hold Person and Hideous Laughter do a wonders against them. Low level boggarts in 2 locations next to Oleg's post vulnerable to Daze cantrip of all things.

Yes, but I was lower levelled and had to rely on Grease for the most part. Which worked well enough for the other 10 encounters of one shotting raging barbarians, until they decided to throw in an even bigger HP sponge with reach attacks.

 

[Sergiu64]

Does it matter? You tank with your ac no?

Had an undead cyclops roll a 20 and another 20 to confirm - he was using a greataxe. 90something damage. Took my tank down to 10% of his hp. The problem is that the game throws so many mobs at you that every once in a while the sheer number produces such results.

 

[ArchAngel]

Does it matter? You tank with your ac no?

Had an undead cyclops roll a 20 and another 20 to confirm - he was using a greataxe. 90something damage. Took my tank down to 10% of his hp. The problem is that the game throws so many mobs at you that every once in a while the sheer number produces such results.

Which is not a big problem when playing a standard game as you can load the save when those rare situations happen.

But all the people on these forums making OP builds and playing on Unfair should have been playing Ironman mode long ago if they really want show us their big epeens. Any noob with any build can finish Unfair with power of Load Game.

 

[Daidre]

I never liked "safe and slow" of the iron man with defensive builds and avoidance of high level locations and encounters. Figuring out how to kill Linnworm, Lich or 3 Raging Owlbears with 7-8 level party imho more fun than risk-eliminating, do easiest parts first and never forget to rest and buff approach for no-reloads.

I generally try to avoid combat reloading and resting in dungeons though.

 

[razvedchiki]

YOu can start with Dex 19 (you get 5 level up points so you still get to 24 and reaching level 20 in ch5 is trivial) and put those points into other stats like CON or at least +1 STR for STR 8.

Well im using the arcana mod that has a trait that changes diplomacy checks from charisma to wisdom.
Strenght is useless for me because i will not be wearing armor(no point taking monk if i do).

 

[ArchAngel]

I never liked "safe and slow" of the iron man with defensive builds and avoidance of high level locations and encounters. Figuring out how to kill Linnworm, Lich or 3 Raging Owlbears with 7-8 level party imho more fun than risk-eliminating, do easiest parts first and never forget to rest and buff approach for no-reloads.

I generally try to avoid combat reloading and resting in dungeons though.

But that is exactly the way classes and stuff is balanced in PnP. You got one try so you don't fuck around with stupid glass cannon builds (all it takes is some bad RNG to kill that character) or those that bloom late (you cannot be sure you will live that long). And that balance was more or less ported to this game 1:1 without taking into account you can just load save at any time.

So people start playing Ironman for a proper character building and combat experience.

 

[Raghar]

And that balance was more or less ported to this game 1:1 without taking into account you can just load save at any time.

So people start playing Ironman for a proper character building and combat experience.

From my experience as GM, they had no clue about making proper RPG encounter, they acted a "rule lawyers" tried to find holes in system and abuse them in encounters, instead of making stuff realistic, and writing more sensible custom rules.

For example. Masterwork weapons are rare, but in pathfinder every kobold had one.
Certain bosses fought defensively, but were they even trained to fight defensively? Certain monsters are thought to have high AC not because of thick skin or armor, but because they have innate levels in defensive fight without attack penalties. Defensive fight and defensive fight. I'm not sure about that.

Or certain fights. Well even I would thought twice to put absurd stuff into encounters like that. And I think players should have freedom in theirs decisions: Do you want to go there, there is rumored dragon. For sure we want. OK there is dragon.

 

[Daidre]

And that balance was more or less ported to this game 1:1 without taking into account you can just load save at any time.

If you were correct there would be a lot less people screaming about how unbalanced game is on every forum of notice.

+8 to all stats and extra template on every creature were made exactly to differ from PnP balance and accommodate realoads as part of game. Glaring absence of option to run away from combat is telling enough I think.

 

[Zumbabul]

So people start playing Ironman for a proper character building and combat experience.

I tried to play ironman and I really enjoyed it. However, in Ironman you will eventually die, and you will need to replay the first chapters over and over again. It is ok first few times, and the first two chapters are the best. But after the sixth death I just remember the first chapter by heart. You also burn out and lose interest to the game.

 

[ArchAngel]

So people start playing Ironman for a proper character building and combat experience.

I tried to play ironman and I really enjoyed it. However, in Ironman you will eventually die, and you will need to replay the first chapters over and over again. It is ok first few times, and the first two chapters are the best. But after the sixth death I just remember the first chapter by heart. You also burn out and lose interest to the game.

Well of course I am not claiming that you should only play Ironman, my post was for couple of guys here that still keep playing the game, and keep making new characters of Unfair and boasting how they are cool.
You can only be cool on Ironman, even on non Unfair difficulty.

 

[ArchAngel]

And that balance was more or less ported to this game 1:1 without taking into account you can just load save at any time.

If you were correct there would be a lot less people screaming about how unbalanced game is on every forum of notice.

+8 to all stats and extra template on every creature were made exactly to differ from PnP balance and accommodate realoads as part of game. Glaring absence of option to run away from combat is telling enough I think.

I do agree that devs boosted enemies a bit but that is also because you got 6 guys in this game when in PnP modules are balanced for 4 man parties. Also many of the people complaining probably tried it on challenging and ran into higher challenge areas like headless chickens.
Also it is much easier to min max in this game and coordinate your battle tactics when you get to build all your characters and telling them what to do instead of having every player doing his own thing.

 

[Zumbabul]

You can only be cool on Ironman, even on non Unfair difficulty.

100 % agree with you.

 

[Desiderius]

This game is way more fun than PoE. Writing is kinda whatever, but the gameplay is tight and it's way more challenging/rewarding. I'm about to fight the stag lord.

Should I be multi-classing? I haven't done any so far at level 4.

It’s a fun thing to play around with on subsequent playthroughs. Certainly not necessary to be effective though. Anything that needs to beat a save or penetrate spell resistance usually benefits from staying very focused.