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

[Yosharian]

Is that the one where she ambushes you with the monsters? I just cast invisibility and ran out of there. Came back to annihilate those fuckers later on when I was stronger.

Yes it's that place. I specifically mentioned those martial classes, because they don't cast spells and have rather low defense, and support bard isn't going to kill stuff anyway. Also, flytrap has pretty high perception + there are vine and glitterdust traps.

Potion of invisibility? Is that a thing in Kingmaker? I forget

I seem to remember being able to walk around whatever traps there were but yeah, possibly you have a point here

Maybe you can pre-cast invisibility on your MC using one of your other party members

 

[Sjukob]

Potion of invisibility? Is that a thing in Kingmaker? I forget

I seem to remember being able to walk around whatever traps there were but yeah, possibly you have a point here

Maybe you can pre-cast invisibility on your MC using one of your other party members

Potions of invisibility are a thing, but they are not abundant unless you use crafting mod. Also, they only increase your stealth skill by 20, they don't make you undetectable, so if your character doesn't put points in stealth the monsters will see him anyway, especially that giant flytrap. As for party members, you have to come alone to Verdant Chambers and changing party on the world map takes a lot of time.

 

[Yosharian]

Potion of invisibility? Is that a thing in Kingmaker? I forget

I seem to remember being able to walk around whatever traps there were but yeah, possibly you have a point here

Maybe you can pre-cast invisibility on your MC using one of your other party members

Potions of invisibility are a thing, but they are not abundant unless you use crafting mod. Also, they only increase your stealth skill by 20, they don't make you undetectable, so if your character doesn't put points in stealth the monsters will see him anyway, especially that giant flytrap. As for party members, you have to come alone to Verdant Chambers and changing party on the world map takes a lot of time.

Ah right, yeah I guess if you have no points in the skill or are wearing full plate or whatever then it's not a reliable strategy

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Curious as to how far true munchkins get when stacking AC. What would be an impressive AC at say level 10 (pre or post buff)?

AC at around lvl 10 ??

10
+ 2 monk bonus (+1 for every 4 levels)
+ 4 defensive fighting crane style + 3 mobility
+ 2 deflection from say a ring or potion or spell
+ 4 Dex at the very least (from dex + either items or cats grace)
+ 4 bonus (from Wis or CHA + either items or spells)
+ 3 barkskin
+ 4 mage armor
+ 4 shield spell
+ 2 robes (if you get the early robe with +2 dodge AC from artisan)
+ 2 magic vestment cast on robes
+ 2 dodge AC equip arcane protector in inactive weapon slot
that's 43.
I probably forget some things. Reduce person? It also assumes a STR based monk otherwise Dex should be higher. And it assumes a pure monk, so no vivi mutagens or dragon bloodline bonuses etc. It's not really that impressive at that point as far as AC tanks go, monk 1 + SS will go higher and have mirror image to boot, same with monk 1 + bard + DD, vivi builds or monk1+ Eldritch Scoundrel builds. Still, no defensive feats other than crane style, so it assumes full offense, and I guess as a DPS character with reasonably high defensives it's at least serviceable as a secondary tank.

 

[ga♥]

If you equip arcane protector you get the AC even if not in use?

 

[Sjukob]

Reading through Ventilator's post makes me think if pets are bugged or not. Level 7 mastodon, that's with mods though.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Since when can you give items to pets?

 

[kelkorkesis]

"Call of the wild" does that. It reduces animal stats to what they are in pnp though.

 

[ga♥]

I can't seem to get the AC with protector on a slot not in use.
I guess they fixed it or I am doing something wrong?

 

[Daidre]

Reading through Ventilator's post makes me think if pets are bugged or not. Level 7 mastodon, that's with mods though.

Call of the Wild mod change too many thing about how pets work - access to inventory and optional nerf among them, plus new classes, feats, spells and a ton of undocumented changes. Judging original game's balance based on it is imho very pointless.

I can't seem to get the AC with protector on a slot not in use.
I guess they fixed it or I am doing something wrong?

Owlcat fixed it some time ago.

 

[Sjukob]

"Call of the wild" does that. It reduces animal stats to what they are in pnp though.

Yep and it's pretty insane, with druid and wizard buffs they turn into ultimate units up until Varnhold at least.

Call of the Wild mod change too many thing about how pets work - access to inventory and optional nerf among them, plus new classes, feats, spells and a ton of undocumented changes. Judging original game's balance based on it is imho very pointless.

I like stuff that it adds though, ice slick for arcane casters or burst of radiance for clerics are very handy when fighting trolls, for example. As for the picture, it's just that I didn't pay attention to natural armor stacking on pets. I don't know of that's the intended behaviour.

 

[rashiakas]

And all the animated fucking plants, some areas in the last dungeon DLC were quite annoying because of this (stuttering).

Yeah, when the water tiles get involved the FPS drops significantly: Lastlorn, Tenebrous Depths - Weary Traveler floor and Tranquil River Bend, all suffer from this, although I don't remember having issues with Silverstep village.

By the way, I wanted to ask, how do certain classes complete Verdant Chambers, especially on higher difficulties ? What do you do if you play a 2h fighter ? Or a barbarian ? Or a strength monk ? Or a support character not specced for offense, like bard ? Mind that I haven't explored the location properly and only played characters that were either good at kiting or had some good defenses - grenadier and melee sorc with displacement and mirror image, so I went straight for the owlbear and flytrap each time. Can you actually ignore Nyrissa's invitation entirely ?

You get 2 potions of invisibility, also there is an alternate exit if you climb the wall. If you remove Armor, you also remove ACP to Stealth checks, and there are relatively cheap +stealth items available at that point of the game.

 

[Sjukob]

You get 2 potions of invisibility, also there is an alternate exit if you climb the wall. If you remove Armor, you also remove ACP to Stealth checks, and there are relatively cheap +stealth items available at that point of the game.

You are right, of course. I just didn't think that invisibility potion + shadow cloak gives you +30 stealth on it's own, and I've never bothered to look for an alternative exit.

 

[LannTheStupid]

In general, Linzi warns in the journal that Verdant Chambers could be a trap. There is even a hint about invisibility potions (however, it might have been added with later patches). So the player who can read is supposed to be extremely cautious while entering this location and probably explore as much as possible before drawing the nymph's attention.

 

[DavidBVal]

Am I the only one that absolutely hates the endgame? (House at the End of Time and onwards, although I am still not done)

HatEoT feels monotonous and very long, I found myself taking breaks after a few combats just to make it bearable, and for the first time in the game I gave up on exploring everything.

Then, surprise! you are cursed. Half your rolls are a natural 1, because rolling 1s is so fun in RPGs! Plus of course I can't cast spells, which is the backbone of the game system. And after all that careful effort to optimize your kingdom, nevermind, everything is now in ruins and streets are littered with corpses, yay. It's like kingdom management never mattered to begin with. There were much better ways to implement this "curse" and the "world merger", I think. Handicapping the player with a random fail chance to everything, then throwing low level enemies at him? takes away any feeling of accomplishment or epicness.

 

[Efe]

its there to make you feel who your enemy is... a trickster god.

 

[Trashos]

HatEoT feels monotonous and very long

HATEOT was some of the best fun I had in gaming for as long as I can remember. But I treated it as a puzzle, not as a place that had to be cleared.

 

[Bara]

Is anyone else playing with the turn based mod on and noticing the astrademons behaving oddly?

Third time I've engaged in combat with one and each time they keep casting vampiric touch on themselves. I don't know if this is a bug with the mod or the game itself.

I don't remember this happening when I original played in real time.

 

[Mexi]

Anyone know why this game is so insanely GPU heavy!? The graphics aren't even as nice as PoE's, and it lags like hell in that main square of the Kingdom area. On top of that, the fucking portrait's quality is tied to the game's resolution, which is insane. You can only get a nice custom portrait on screen if you have 4k, but I feel like it takes a high-end GPU to sustain 4K at 60 fps. I already did that antialiasing trick, and it doesn't fix anything. Any ideas? I hope the sequel doesn't do this, btw.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Anyone know why this game is so insanely GPU heavy!? The graphics aren't even as nice as PoE's, and it lags like hell in that main square of the Kingdom area. On top of that, the fucking portrait's quality is tied to the game's resolution, which is insane. You can only get a nice custom portrait on screen if you have 4k, but I feel like it takes a high-end GPU to sustain 4K at 60 fps. I already did that antialiasing trick, and it doesn't fix anything. Any ideas? I hope the sequel doesn't do this, btw.

Unity

 

[Trashos]

Anyone know why this game is so insanely GPU heavy!? The graphics aren't even as nice as PoE's, and it lags like hell in that main square of the Kingdom area. On top of that, the fucking portrait's quality is tied to the game's resolution, which is insane. You can only get a nice custom portrait on screen if you have 4k, but I feel like it takes a high-end GPU to sustain 4K at 60 fps. I already did that antialiasing trick, and it doesn't fix anything. Any ideas? I hope the sequel doesn't do this, btw.

Performance went up for me (and others too) by reducing all display options to minimum. It looks significantly uglier this way, but I was getting crashes with higher settings. Also, I sell my stuff in the tavern, so that the main square and the throne room remain "lighter".

 

[Pink Eye]

Hm. Yeah. Ancient tomb is still as obnoxious as ever. This fight alone single handily ends most of my iron man runs. I need to stop playing Unfair + Iron Man. I don't make any progress at all, except for wasting 100 hours of my life. But it's so addicting bros...

Spoiler

I lost this Iron Man run after sustaining a crit to the face

 

[Pink Eye]

I just need that one run. That one perfect run, and I'm golden.

 

[Trashos]

As you know I am not playing on unfair. But, in principle, you have to take unlucky crits into account for ironman, and design your strategy assuming they are going to happen. That said, I have no idea if they can be dealt with systematically that early.

 

[Pink Eye]

As you know I am not playing on unfair. But, in principle, you have to take unlucky crits into account for ironman, and design your strategy assuming they are going to happen. That said, I have no idea if they can be dealt with systematically that early.

One way is to use pets, summons, or *shudders* degenerate vivi dips on melee users. But I like monks, so I play monks.
>That said, I have no idea if they can be dealt with systematically that early
This has me thinking. I have been doing just that. I forced my monk to get deflect arrow at level 1. This helped with the ranged assassins in the prologue area. As my monks would sometimes get an unlucky crit to face from an arrow. I also made sure to have decent con as well, it seems like 16 is the sweet spot, but 14 con is also okay I guess. The problem is that if you build too defensively in the early game, you will lack power. Which means you won't be able to end fights as quickly. Which means the more time you spend being in combat with an enemy, the more likely that enemy is going to get lucky and crit you in the face. I have to figure out a solid feat to help with killing things. I originally picked power attack, which helps, but only if you get lucky and actually hit the enemy. Basically power attack is great, when it fooking works. I tried pummeling style, but it didn't do as much damage as I'd hope. I might try a dragon style monk, and see how that goes.

Also investing in UMD is super important. Once you leave the early game no one sells magic armor potions. But Bokken does sell a wand of magic armor, which is useless if no one in your party can use the damn thing.