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

[Trashos]

Thanks all.
An enlarged Amiri can one-hit most things, you just have to stand in front of her and hang on until she actually hits an AC25 enemy with an attack roll of +6 or whatever.

Other than buffing, pull Amiri back after each attack and use the ability "Charge" over and over, for the bonus to attack rolls. Equip Amiri with a 6-ft reach weapon (when you find one), so that she doesn't suffer Attacks of Opportunity when retreating.

(I still recommend Challenging, though. Hard is going to be a reload/resting fest for a 1st playthrough.)

 

[Pink Eye]

>Hard is going to be a reload fest for a 1st playthrough.
Yeah, lol. Unless you know how to abuse the AI.

 

[Haplo]

Thanks all.

It's my first run, so I may drop one of the enemy stat options down a notch in difficulty. It's weird in the sense that stock Hard feels good generally, but AC acts the fundamental bottleneck for everything both sides do. An enlarged Amiri can one-hit most things, you just have to stand in front of her and hang on until she actually hits an AC25 enemy with an attack roll of +6 or whatever.

For the sword saint, I rolled a DEX/CHA build thinking I'll later do a couple in Paladin and use monk/pal classes' CHA bonus for AC/Saves, stay naked/robed whole game. Is that too fiddly? I see Haplo went with more of a standard build.

>For the sword saint, I rolled a DEX/CHA build.
DEX does have high AC, however STR does more damage. We will have to summon Haplo and ask him what he thinks.

Dex/Cha Sword Saint is unconventional, I'd say.

Str focus offers highest damage (with high-ish Wis ~18 and ~16 Int plus moderate Dex ~14). Also once you dip monk, use Mirror Image and stack some bonuses, you're unhittable anyways. This can happen already around level 5 if you know what you're doing.

Dex/Int is... weaker IMO. However if for some reason you want to avoid dipping Monk and stay pure, a traditional Sword Saint, it's an acceptable build. Enjoys focused attributes, which is kinda nice. Has even better Initiative. Also puts more emphasis on the Spellcombat/Spellstrike abilities.

Dex/Cha? I don't know. I guess you want to go for Paladin save bonuses and also be better at persuasion. But IMO its not worth it. As a Sword Saint your saves are already excellent, not worth it to delay and dilute the awesome SS abilities (better simply not to neglect Wis and dip 1 Traditional Monk = same Will as Paladin with Charisma focus). Skills you can buff skyhigh (particularly with Tristan & Linzi) plus you don't need your main char to actually pass those skillchecks (barring a handful of situations, where only 1 is fairly significant IMO).

 

[Parabalus]

Do chapter specific problems get cleared when you finish the associated quest? Think I had a "Troll Raids" vanish.

The only thing I am not sure about is whether it is a good idea to put castle management on easy or something. What do you guys think? Does it add to the game or just annoying.

Kingdom management is an important part of the game, and you will be missing a great deal of the developers' intentions if you do not play it. Personally I like it, and I say you need to at least try it.

I have been playing kingdom management on "Normal" since my 1st playthrough, and it is fine.

My singular problem with the Kingdom Management, is how you personally cannot attend to any of it, nor can you assign a free eligible adviser. Why can't we have deputy treasurers or reagents? It's obnoxious having a problem card pop up one day after you've committed your adviser to a month long task.

>It's obnoxious having a problem card pop up one day after you've committed your adviser to a month long task.
Usually it's okay to fail and take a hit to stats, for sometimes the hit to stats isn't that bad. Easily recoverable if your advisors succeed on a problem card. I always recommend people to make a hard save at the start of each month. That way you can better assess what problems are worth the attention, and which ones are not.

Also, another thing, some problem cards usually have a timer. But if you dedicated your advisor to a month long event, then I can see that being a problem.

The month long stuff is best committed at the end of the month, you can't get surprised then, and your advisor gets freed at the end of the next month.

plus you don't need your main char to actually pass those skillchecks (barring a handful of situations, where only 1 is fairly significant IMO).

Unless you're using the "Only active chars get XP" option, then you really want him able to persuade and prob trickery on his own.

 

[Pink Eye]

>Do chapter specific problems get cleared when you finish the associated quest?
They do. Or at least they did when I last did a complete play through of the game.

 

[Daidre]

Do chapter specific problems get cleared when you finish the associated quest? Think I had a "Troll Raids" vanish.

Almost all of them vanish. Only exception I've noticed is "Minor Pitax Influence" cards, it would probably be the same for other versions of "Pitax Influence" cards since they are a bit different from other chapter specific problems - those apply penalties when expire without resolution, but Pitax Influence hits with "- to all stats" when it spawns, initially and successful resolution gives a chance to recover the losses (and even turn it into "+ all stats" in case of Minor Influence + Triumph).

 

[Haplo]

plus you don't need your main char to actually pass those skillchecks (barring a handful of situations, where only 1 is fairly significant IMO).

Unless you're using the "Only active chars get XP" option, then you really want him able to persuade and prob trickery on his own.

But that is exactly what I'm doing

Thing is, conversation xp is neglible before level 10-12 or so. Barring ONE single chance to Intimidate a certain nasty fey in the far north west corner early.
Early on trap disarming xp is where its at.
By the time the persuasion rewards become substantial, you can stack enough skill modifiers to pass all checks with flying colors dumped 5-7 Cha (provided that you have Tristan and a bard in your party).

 

[Parabalus]

plus you don't need your main char to actually pass those skillchecks (barring a handful of situations, where only 1 is fairly significant IMO).

Unless you're using the "Only active chars get XP" option, then you really want him able to persuade and prob trickery on his own.

But that is exactly what I'm doing

Thing is, conversation xp is neglible before level 10-12 or so. Barring ONE single chance to Intimidate a certain nasty fey in the far north west corner early.
Early on trap disarming xp is where its at.
By the time the persuasion rewards become substantial, you can stack enough skill modifiers to pass all checks with flying colors dumped 5-7 Cha (provided that you have Tristan and a bard in your party).

Not sure it's really that negligible, the fey is the "big early payoff" but there are many checks for 1-3k a pop.

E.g. my main is at 200k now while the oldest NPCs are at 130k, I'd guess that maybe 60% of that difference is Trickery.

 

[Haplo]

Big early payoff is that one small swamp area layered with gas traps, 2000k xp a pop. And there's what, like 6-9 of them?
Bartholmew's area is not bad either when you get there.

Meanwhile what, like 10 checks at ~1000 xp each (I'm guessing here, but some only give 200-300 xp) till level 10 or so is far from impressive.

With that 1 fey probably providing way more then all other diplomacy checks up to that point combined (but it's not easy to pass if you go there early... even for a dedicated Intimidation character).

 

[Yosharian]

The "+8 to all physical/mental stats" items are so broken that you don't even need to specialise in one ability score for your MC. Just get them all. Strength for damage, dex for AC, CHA for saves & AC (Scaled Fist dip), Int for AC (Sword Saint).

 

[Daidre]

Big early payoff is some swamp area layered with gas traps, 2000k xp a pop. And there's what, like 6-9 of them?
Bartholmew's area is not bad either at that point.

There is another big trap inside the first room of Verdant Chambers for ~8-10k xp.
Also traps in Lonely Barrow for ~5+k xp.
All available in chapter 2.

 

[Parabalus]

Anyone know the ID of "A confirmation of innocence"?

Threw Sharel in the dungeon, didn't notice it failed the quest till later on. Would like to try fixing it by editing the .json.

 

[Efe]

bear the consequences of your actions.

 

[ga♥]

I have never played a Sword saint, how is DEX/WIS stronger than a DEX/INT build? Aren't all abilities INT based? Haplo

 

[Haplo]

Of course Dex/Int if you want to go that way. Simply don't neglect Wis for Will save - and monk AC bonus if you want it.

 

[Ravness]

Found some time to play more Kingmaker, starting up on the Varnhold Lot DLC. I guess I have to start a new character, probably start as a ranger or something.

Is Kingmaker going to win RPGCodex's GOTY????

 

[Trashos]

Is Kingmaker going to win RPGCodex's GOTY????

It won GOTY... for 2018.
https://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=11084

 

[Xor]

I didn't even hear about this game until around 6 months ago and I just got around to playing it now...goddamn, how the hell did it slide under my radar? Although I'm kind of glad it did considering what I've read about the initial release and how buggy it was. But really, a top-down isometric infinity engine inspired 100+ hour RPG with kingdom management elements? This was basically guaranteed to go on my top 10 list somewhere. I'm 90 hours in and I still have 3 chapters left, and I already know I'm going to play through this again to clean up things I screwed up early on.

 

[Parabalus]

When is Varnhold's Lot in the main campaign supposed to trigger?

Imported the save before Ch4, did Armag now but still nothing new.

 

[Jarpie]

Varn should come to visit you and new place appear in the map.

 

[ga♥]

When is Varnhold's Lot in the main campaign supposed to trigger?

Imported the save before Ch4, did Armag now but still nothing new.

You need to have recruited Maegar as an advisor. If you don't have him it doesn't trigger.

 

[Catacombs]

I am FINALLY getting around to playing this game, thanks to the long weekend. I'm a couple of hours in and really enjoying it. I also installed some mods based on Yosharian's excellent list.

I already have TB, cleaner and several others that have made the game more enjoyable. Anyone else have some good recommendations?

 

[Yosharian]

Yeah btw I removed the Craft Items mod because it's dead, and I decided I wasn't happy with the way you could just make rings with infinite enchantments. Shame, I was hoping the creator would keep updating it.

 

[Trashos]

My current playthrough is a Lawful Evil one (my previous 2 were Lawful Good & Lawful Neutral). It is VERY satisfying. At last, a game where Evil is limited to neither "Bwahahha! I will torture you for fun!" nor "Just kill everyone, if you want to be evil", but it is actually well thought out! For me, this is huge. INCLINE!

(Of course, torture for fun is also a possibility, mainly under Chaotic Evil.)

 

[Tigranes]

My first playthrough is going well. I have got to the hunting lodge part. It is a very good game. Quite a few mediocre elements and some clear flaws, as to be expected from an ambitious RPG, but at the core it is surprising how accomplished it is - Owlcat's first game, right?

One of the weird (not in a bad way) things about this game is how it plays out as a Supergeneric RPG for a while, and you're just killing nondescript bad guy in the most basic questline, but then you are literally helping somebody do a medieval surgery or doing some kind of 'the culprit is right here in this room' Agatha Christie thing.

The kingdom management seems fine to me on Challenging - at least so far. The 'build buildings in village' stuff is super pointless busywork, but the layer of events and projects and their integration into quests is nice.