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

[Ramnozack]

What are the best schools of magic to take spell focus in? Right now I want to pick up GSF Conj and GSF Evocation/Trans and can't decide which of the two to go with, or if I should go with them at all. Playing as an COTW Arcanist

 

[Cryomancer]

What are the best schools of magic to take spell focus in? Right now I want to pick up GSF Conj and GSF Evocation/Trans and can't decide which of the two to go with, or if I should go with them at all. Playing as an COTW Arcanist

Depends a lot for what. Conjuration allows you to pick augmented/superior summoning. Evocation increases the DC of Sirroco and other nasty spells. Necromancy from Finger of Death and Horrid Wilting

 

[Ramnozack]

What are the best schools of magic to take spell focus in? Right now I want to pick up GSF Conj and GSF Evocation/Trans and can't decide which of the two to go with, or if I should go with them at all. Playing as an COTW Arcanist

Depends a lot for what. Conjuration allows you to pick augmented/superior summoning. Evocation increases the DC of Sirroco and other nasty spells. Necromancy from Finger of Death and Horrid Wilting

Just looking for all around good schools to take a second GSF in (or is it even worth taking another GSF? Can just boost the DC of any spell by 2 with potent magic exploit)

 

[oldmanpaco]

So animal companions on unfair. I'm thinking of doing another unfair run after the official release of the TB mode. Last unfair run got to the Monster Den but I had a Mad Dog/Sacred Huntsman and Ecclesitheurge w/ Animal domain. The pets made the battles easier but what a goddamn chore to keep them buffed up (and alive). I liked the rest of my party (PC melee sorcerer, pure vivisectionist, staff monk/2H fighter, pure bard) so thinking about going with a pet free party or only one.

Are pets doable on unfair or should I just invest in a better off tank?

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

What are the best schools of magic to take spell focus in? Right now I want to pick up GSF Conj and GSF Evocation/Trans and can't decide which of the two to go with, or if I should go with them at all. Playing as an COTW Arcanist

Depends a lot for what. Conjuration allows you to pick augmented/superior summoning. Evocation increases the DC of Sirroco and other nasty spells. Necromancy from Finger of Death and Horrid Wilting

Just looking for all around good schools to take a second GSF in (or is it even worth taking another GSF? Can just boost the DC of any spell by 2 with potent magic exploit)

Conjuration, Evocation, and Enchantment probably give you the best mileage for your feats. In that order, to boot. Illusion is a good choice, but you'll have to wait for Level 4 spells for that to really pay off. Necromancy kicks in very late for arcane casters. Divination and Abjuration are nearly pointless to boost DC, and Universal is objectively useless to take a feat in. There are some people who really like Transmutation, but outside of Slow & Disintegrate, can't say I use that school much.

 

[Sharpedge]

So animal companions on unfair. I'm thinking of doing another unfair run after the official release of the TB mode. Last unfair run got to the Monster Den but I had a Mad Dog/Sacred Huntsman and Ecclesitheurge w/ Animal domain. The pets made the battles easier but what a goddamn chore to keep them buffed up (and alive). I liked the rest of my party (PC melee sorcerer, pure vivisectionist, staff monk/2H fighter, pure bard) so thinking about going with a pet free party or only one.

Are pets doable on unfair or should I just invest in a better off tank?

Pets are very much viable on unfair but you will need to buff them.

 

[Haplo]

On BG2, people say that is impossible to beat the game without a cleric, however, I soloed the game on Legacy of Bhaal(EE) as a necromancer. PFKM I tried to solo the game but failed... The reasons are many

• Resting on pfkm is far more complicated
• You don't start the game on mid level contrary to BG2:SoA. Lv 1 casters suffers a lot.
• There is no ultra powerful spells like Chain Contingency and Stop Time
• A lot of enemies will only take the full damage of a finger of death on a critical. You can't cast two lower resist + greater malison and make even a dragon have around 60% of chance of OHdying by FoD.
• There is no long duration summons
• There is no familiar who can detect nasty traps and without a cleric to heal attribute damage, a lot of damage to your INT/CHA(wiz/sorc) can mean that you can no longer cast spells
• Enemies cast way more nasty spells like feeblemind
• Enemies with 35+ SR are not uncommon and contrary to BG2, there are no LR to lower his "magic resistance"

I an not complaining about any information posted here. Only explaining why I failed on soloing the game as a caster. In fact, I like some trap designs and that you can't rest scum. But there are people who soloed the game as a sorcerer.

Technically there is a long duration summon, but late game and restricted to druids and specific cleric domains: Elemental Swarm.

On the upside, dedicated casters can achieve DCs that are impossible in most other games. Like Illusionists pulling off like 41 DC on Weird and such. Most enemies don't stand a chance against such attacks.
Arcane Tricksters are capable of dealing crazy damage and nearly erasing most encounters in 1-2 casts.

 

[NJClaw]

The pets made the battles easier but what a goddamn chore to keep them buffed up (and alive).

There's nothing you can do about the "alive" part, but you can skip the "chore" part using the buff bot mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/pathfinderkingmaker/mods/119

 

[Haplo]

What are the best schools of magic to take spell focus in? Right now I want to pick up GSF Conj and GSF Evocation/Trans and can't decide which of the two to go with, or if I should go with them at all. Playing as an COTW Arcanist

Depends a lot for what. Conjuration allows you to pick augmented/superior summoning. Evocation increases the DC of Sirroco and other nasty spells. Necromancy from Finger of Death and Horrid Wilting

Just looking for all around good schools to take a second GSF in (or is it even worth taking another GSF? Can just boost the DC of any spell by 2 with potent magic exploit)

Conjuration, Evocation, and Enchantment probably give you the best mileage for your feats. In that order, to boot. Illusion is a good choice, but you'll have to wait for Level 4 spells for that to really pay off. Necromancy kicks in very late for arcane casters. Divination and Abjuration are nearly pointless to boost DC, and Universal is objectively useless to take a feat in. There are some people who really like Transmutation, but outside of Slow & Disintegrate, can't say I use that school much.

Conjuration >>> Evocation.
Illusion if you really insist to specialize in it. It actually has cool spells, including actual death effects, but there will be a significant group of enemies who will be immune.
Necromancy? For flavor maybe. Its really not that great. Some of the best Necro spells offer no save against suck anyway.

Enchantment? Please. Conjuration is soo much better its not even funny. AND there are no enemies immune to it. It even bypasses SR!
Only ever take Enchantment focus as a spellcasting-focused bard.

Transmutation? Nope. MAAYBE if you're a Disintegrate+Slow junkie, but really, its a waste.

 

[Yosharian]

The pets made the battles easier but what a goddamn chore to keep them buffed up (and alive).

There's nothing you can do about the "alive" part, but you can skip the "chore" part using the buff bot mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/pathfinderkingmaker/mods/119

if it actually works

 

[Sykar]

What are the best schools of magic to take spell focus in? Right now I want to pick up GSF Conj and GSF Evocation/Trans and can't decide which of the two to go with, or if I should go with them at all. Playing as an COTW Arcanist

Depends a lot for what. Conjuration allows you to pick augmented/superior summoning. Evocation increases the DC of Sirroco and other nasty spells. Necromancy from Finger of Death and Horrid Wilting

Just looking for all around good schools to take a second GSF in (or is it even worth taking another GSF? Can just boost the DC of any spell by 2 with potent magic exploit)

Conjuration, Evocation, and Enchantment probably give you the best mileage for your feats. In that order, to boot. Illusion is a good choice, but you'll have to wait for Level 4 spells for that to really pay off. Necromancy kicks in very late for arcane casters. Divination and Abjuration are nearly pointless to boost DC, and Universal is objectively useless to take a feat in. There are some people who really like Transmutation, but outside of Slow & Disintegrate, can't say I use that school much.

Conjuration >>> Evocation.
Illusion if you really insist to specialize in it. It actually has cool spells, including actual death effects, but there will be a significant group of enemies who will be immune.
Necromancy? For flavor maybe. Its really not that great. Some of the best Necro spells offer no save against suck anyway.

Enchantment? Please. Conjuration is soo much better its not even funny. AND there are no enemies immune to it. It even bypasses SR!
Only ever take Enchantment focus as a spellcasting-focused bard.

Transmutation? Nope. MAAYBE if you're a Disintegrate+Slow junkie, but really, its a waste.

Have to disagree to some degree. Evocation deals clearly a lot more damage than Conjuration and with feats like Spell Specialization and mage tattoo you push the damage hard early game and later you can add Intensify Spell feat as well. SR is not as big of an issue as you make it out to be especially if you use the CotW mod but even without Elf+Spell Penetration feats will be enough for 99.9% of the content to hardly ever see a resisted spell. With CotW you can easily ignore Elf even and just go for stuff like Spell Perfection or Penetrating Spell feat which makes SR a joke.
Summons are not that great especially later even with Agument and Superior Summon feat and die swiftly unless conjured into enemy flanks/weak monsters. I consider Stinking Cloud+Delay Poison an exploit and never use it. The pit spells are nice but delay damage since the monsters cannot be attacked while in the rift. Glitterdust does nothing to enemies immune to blind and is low level. Chains of Light is its best CC spell but it is single target. Evo apart from great damage, has some great CC in Icy Tomb, Mass Icy Tomb and Sirocco.
Enchantment suffers a little due to immunities but it has some of the best buffs and debuffs in the game and Bards cannot reach spell level 9 which does impact the achievable DC noticably.

Ultimately any school is sufficiently strong apart from Divination which struggles due to low selection of spells but there are mods to fix that. If you use mods which add some much needed spells Divination is an incredibly strong school especially for TB mode due to the fact that diviners basically always win iniative.

 

[Yosharian]

it's far more efficient to simply CC stuff and let your physical damage dealers rip them to pieces though IMO

and grease is devastating from level 1

 

[Sykar]

it's far more efficient to simply CC stuff and let your physical damage dealers rip them to pieces though IMO

and grease is devastating from level 1

Some enemies like Gargoyles are outright immune to Grease. As to "efficient" that depends. My fire sorcerer with draconic line and Cotw mod can pump out 5d4 Burning Hands from the get go. That is 12-13 damage on average which one shots basically everything the first 2 levels that does not make its saving throw. Level 4 I can switch to Burning Arc for Spell specialization which leaves me with 5d4 Burning Hands and 7d6 BAs.
Grease even on just Challenging and Greater Spell Focus is not as reliable as people want to make it out to be, especially against enemies with really good dex saves. Also with Grease much of your physical damage then must come from ranged physical damage dealers and how many are there really? Most of your standard companions are either casters or melee. Melee and Grease does not mix well unless you base your party entirely on reach weapons and. Grease is more of a safe option but it is not the fastest way to bring down enemies since prone gives you a +4 AC on prone enemies making them much harder to hit early on.

 

[Yosharian]

one well-placed grease pretty much wins a fight, the same cannot be said for a single cast of burning hands, which also has massive FF issues

 

[Sykar]

one well-placed grease pretty much wins a fight, the same cannot be said for a single cast of burning hands, which also has massive FF issues

Um no. BH can outright end a lot of fights in the prologue and early act 1 with just one cast or severely damage enemies so much that they will fall if they get it once more again with very few exceptions.

Both are useless against some enemy types like wisps.

 

[LannTheStupid]

I think Haplo is talking about Unfair difficulty. On Unfair the enemies will be saving against damage spells, and an almost dead enemy can kill the party to reload as easily as an enemy in full health.

 

[Erikkolai]

Not strictly PKM-related, but this seems like a good place to ask...

There was an AD&D source book which contained a detailed section on wizard specialist archetypes. It described things like common characteristics, backgrounds, and alignments, of diviners/abjurers/conjurers/evokers/etc. It was either a Forgotten Realms source book, or a more general one. I thought for sure it was "Magic of Faerûn", but I can't find it there. Do anyone know which source book I'm thinking of? I remember using it when playing on persistent NWN servers around 12+ years ago.

 

[Sharpedge]

I think Haplo is talking about Unfair difficulty. On Unfair the enemies will be saving against damage spells, and an almost dead enemy can kill the party to reload as easily as an enemy in full health.

If you are playing the game solo like S0rcererV1ct0r was talking about earlier in the thread, then imo the gap is much closer between Evocation and Conjuration. For solo I prefer Evocation, simply because early on in the game it lets you have spell specialization on evocation spells and higher level spells like Magic Missiles or burning arc early on are (like you are pointing out) the difference between the enemy dying in a single cast or surviving the round and then killing you.

 

[NJClaw]

Not strictly PKM-related, but this seems like a good place to ask...

There was an AD&D source book which contained a detailed section on wizard specialist archetypes. It described things like common characteristics, backgrounds, and alignments, of diviners/abjurers/conjurers/evokers/etc. It was either a Forgotten Realms source book, or a more general one. I thought for sure it was "Magic of Faerûn", but I can't find it there. Do anyone know which source book I'm thinking of? I remember using it when playing on persistent NWN servers around 12+ years ago.

Tagging Zed Duke of Banville rusty_shackleford because they are the only people I can think of that might know that.

 

[Pink Eye]

>There was an AD&D source book which contained a detailed section on wizard specialist archetypes
This?
https://thetrove.net/Books/Dungeons & Dragons/2nd Edition (AD&D)/Core/Player's Handbook Revised (Premium Edition).pdf

 

[Lawntoilet]

Not strictly PKM-related, but this seems like a good place to ask...

There was an AD&D source book which contained a detailed section on wizard specialist archetypes. It described things like common characteristics, backgrounds, and alignments, of diviners/abjurers/conjurers/evokers/etc. It was either a Forgotten Realms source book, or a more general one. I thought for sure it was "Magic of Faerûn", but I can't find it there. Do anyone know which source book I'm thinking of? I remember using it when playing on persistent NWN servers around 12+ years ago.

Complete Wizard's Handbook is what I think you are looking for. If not, you should check it out anyway.
First result when you Google "AD&D Complete Wizard" should be the full pdf.

 

[Erikkolai]

>There was an AD&D source book which contained a detailed section on wizard specialist archetypes
This?
https://thetrove.net/Books/Dungeons & Dragons/2nd Edition (AD&D)/Core/Player's Handbook Revised (Premium Edition).pdf

Not strictly PKM-related, but this seems like a good place to ask...

There was an AD&D source book which contained a detailed section on wizard specialist archetypes. It described things like common characteristics, backgrounds, and alignments, of diviners/abjurers/conjurers/evokers/etc. It was either a Forgotten Realms source book, or a more general one. I thought for sure it was "Magic of Faerûn", but I can't find it there. Do anyone know which source book I'm thinking of? I remember using it when playing on persistent NWN servers around 12+ years ago.

Complete Wizard's Handbook is what I think you are looking for. If not, you should check it out anyway.
First result when you Google "AD&D Complete Wizard" should be the full pdf.

Thanks for the suggestions, but it's neither of those. The Wizard's Handbook only has very general descriptions of the schools, but the one I'm thinking of had detailed info on common characteristics and alignments of conjurers, illusionists, etc. I'm 80% certain that it was a 3rd edition Forgotten Realms book and looked similar to "Magic of Faerûn" and "Races of Faerün". I'll keep browsing.

 

[Erikkolai]

>There was an AD&D source book which contained a detailed section on wizard specialist archetypes
This?
https://thetrove.net/Books/Dungeons & Dragons/2nd Edition (AD&D)/Core/Player's Handbook Revised (Premium Edition).pdf

Not strictly PKM-related, but this seems like a good place to ask...

There was an AD&D source book which contained a detailed section on wizard specialist archetypes. It described things like common characteristics, backgrounds, and alignments, of diviners/abjurers/conjurers/evokers/etc. It was either a Forgotten Realms source book, or a more general one. I thought for sure it was "Magic of Faerûn", but I can't find it there. Do anyone know which source book I'm thinking of? I remember using it when playing on persistent NWN servers around 12+ years ago.

Complete Wizard's Handbook is what I think you are looking for. If not, you should check it out anyway.
First result when you Google "AD&D Complete Wizard" should be the full pdf.

Thanks for the suggestions, but it's neither of those. The Wizard's Handbook only has very general descriptions of the schools, but the one I'm thinking of had detailed info on common characteristics and alignments of conjurers, illusionists, etc. I'm 80% certain that it was a 3rd edition Forgotten Realms book and looked similar to "Magic of Faerûn" and "Races of Faerün". I'll keep browsing.

Found it. Typically find things shortly after asking for them, even when I've been looking for a while.

It was the "Complete Mage" 3.5 edition handbook. Page 9+

 

[Pink Eye]

Try poking through the trove: https://thetrove.net/Books/Dungeons & Dragons/
The trove is what I use when I read Pathfinder related books.

 

[Pink Eye]

>There was an AD&D source book which contained a detailed section on wizard specialist archetypes
This?
https://thetrove.net/Books/Dungeons & Dragons/2nd Edition (AD&D)/Core/Player's Handbook Revised (Premium Edition).pdf

Not strictly PKM-related, but this seems like a good place to ask...

There was an AD&D source book which contained a detailed section on wizard specialist archetypes. It described things like common characteristics, backgrounds, and alignments, of diviners/abjurers/conjurers/evokers/etc. It was either a Forgotten Realms source book, or a more general one. I thought for sure it was "Magic of Faerûn", but I can't find it there. Do anyone know which source book I'm thinking of? I remember using it when playing on persistent NWN servers around 12+ years ago.

Complete Wizard's Handbook is what I think you are looking for. If not, you should check it out anyway.
First result when you Google "AD&D Complete Wizard" should be the full pdf.

Thanks for the suggestions, but it's neither of those. The Wizard's Handbook only has very general descriptions of the schools, but the one I'm thinking of had detailed info on common characteristics and alignments of conjurers, illusionists, etc. I'm 80% certain that it was a 3rd edition Forgotten Realms book and looked similar to "Magic of Faerûn" and "Races of Faerün". I'll keep browsing.

Found it. Typically find things shortly after asking for them, even when I've been looking for a while.

It was the "Complete Mage" 3.5 edition handbook. Page 9+

Oh congratulations! I'm glad you managed to figure it out.