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

[Trashos]

If you’re playing well in this game your tank is the one who doesn’t need healing.

I do not see how that is possible. I cannot avoid criticals.
Also, at certain parts of the game my AC is not high enough to avoid all non-criticals (but, to be fair, I am not sure if this one is on the game or on me). Certainly the case early on. Playing on Hard, btw.
(House rules: no summons, no pets other than Okbo)

 

[Yosharian]

Fixed the looped romance scene with Regongar in the Capital.

 

[Desiderius]

TSS should be able to keep AC high enough. Ways to avoid crits include Illusions (Mirror Image best of course), Parry, and difficult terrain to manage flow of battle. Of course there are all kinds of debuffs and/or CMs to prevent attax* but ultimately the best defense is a good offense so I play with 3/4 tanks and a big two-handed Cleaver + Ranged toons to end combat fast.

* - Frigid Touch = no save stagger for instance.

 

[Desiderius]

Three levels of Divine Guardian on another toon + In Harm’s Way could also take the heat off of her.

 

[Desiderius]

She’s one of the few companions with the INT for Combat Expertise and TSS gets a shit ton of feats so just give her Dirty Trick and Blind mobs the first round of combat. Flat-footed, -2 AC, 50% miss chance.

 

[Trashos]

Yes, she has taken Combat Expertise and she is fighting defensively. She doesn't have Mirror Image, not sure if I can multiclass her somehow to get it, but even in such a case it is not coming early (setting her up as TSS and then reaching Inquisitor 3 for the solo teamwrok feats take precedence). Still, mini bosses can hit her (not to mention what happens if she gets surrounded by worgs and one of them manages to trip her), and Mirror Image is not something you can have always on anyway.

Idea for the developers:
I think that the random number generator (for attack rolls, skill checks etc) in this game follows a uniform distribution. I am not sure about this (haven't studied it or anything), but that's what I think. If this is indeed the case, I think it would be an improvement if the uniform distribution was replaced with a gaussian distribution. More average numbers this way and less extremes, and therefore less luck and more skill/planning. This would certainly be an improvement for the skill checks.

If somehow I am wrong and it is already a gaussian distribution, then you should probably make it thinner to make the extremes rarer.

 

[LannTheStupid]

(House rules: no summons, no pets other than Okbo)

I will always use ablative armour on all difficulties higher than Challenging.

On the other hand, as I've already mentioned, pits, which are amazing Conjuration spells, are not very compatible with summons, which are amazing Conjuration spells as well.

If this is indeed the case, I think it would be an improvement if the uniform distribution was replaced with a gaussian distribution.

This is cheating even by tabletoppers' definition. Dice is always uniform.
However, if you want to tweak the RNG, you might find this mod interesting: KingmakerLessRandom

 

[Trashos]

ablative armour

What is "ablative armor"?! I even google searched it and did not find anything.

 

[LannTheStupid]

What is "ablative armor"?!

Ablative armor.

 

[Desiderius]

You can plan around random just fine. It’s not ideally a tank, spank, and heal game. There are many ways to disable/destroy packs of wolves all at once. Indeed there are far more anti-animal abilities than animals.

Archeologist is the typical way to get Mirror Image since it also gives you Uncanny Dodge and one of the main points of TSS is to get that DEX-bonus. You can easily squeeze in four levels. At five Archeologists Luck hits +2/+2, at six you can take ten on Trickery checks. CHR-based works well with her since Undead use CHR for CON too.

So Inq4/Arch6/TSS9 is a nice one.

Are you getting hit because you’re flat-footed? Hargulka should be the last thing that hits you on a non-crit other than Bokken/Owlbear.

I wouldn’t even Fight Defensively since you have no way to reduce the penalty. You can wear the Helm for sale at the capital to get +2 Will and +2 AB with Combat Expertise.

 

[Trashos]

LannTheStupid, thanks! Then by ablative armor you mean the buffs (and not the pets/summons)? Yes, I use all the buffs I can get my hands on, it is additional bodies in pets/summons that I generally consider cheating (because they always make any game much easier). Now, I haven't played unfair yet, so I can't tell you if unfair is reasonable without pets (if it is not, I will just stick to Hard -no complaints here from me).

This is cheating even by tabletoppers' definition. Dice is always uniform.

Interesting. I do not see why that is. Gaussian distributions seem much fairer to me (I am talking about crpgs, I understand why physical dice are better left untampered with). It never makes sense to me why luck should screw me if I have done all the planning/building right (for a skill check, eg) or why it should help me if I have done everything wrong.

In these games we generally accept that there is going to be some luck involved, and I am fine with it. It is a matter of balancing so that there is no too much/little luck then. I think a nice gaussian distribution could take care of that. Note that I mostly have the skill checks in mind.

 

[Thac0]

Okay, i started my TB run now. Ranger, Stormwalker because I am too lazy to micro manage pets. I know he is weaker than normal ranger.

Currently fighting through the tutorial, and its quite ardous. I take probably 5 tries per encounter, with the odd encounter here and there where my dudes just oneshot the entire enemy group.
I had a rtwp cleric crusader ages ago, with whom I played unfair aswell. Played roughly until the point where you can challenge the swarms in that one sidequest I think. Difficulty is about the same.

Is there something I am doing terribly wrong? I hit on a 12 with my MC and other good characters, my dudes get hit on an 8 or 10 or something. Due to double damages my party gets blown up as soon as dazes don't stick.
Also does the game get significantly easier on Unfair after 3 hours or so? On the cleric the game got a lot easier with a full custom team, but It was still a tad too annoying to continue on rtwp.

I will probably take the difficulty down to hard otherwise.
My run where I got far into the game was challenging, and that was smooth sailing most of the time, until I got like three different major quest breaking bugs at once. This game on release really was something else.

 

[Whisper]

Hargulka have +36 to attack. And he is Hasted.
You wont be able to reliably tank this.

But already seeing monsters that have more attack.


If you want tank - better start as one. Valerie is OK in long run but at starting levels will be tough, no way she can reliably tank. No CE for some time (Int = 9!), very low Dex which is critical to TSS tank, etc. What people do is either summon spam or use CC's.

 

[Whisper]

LannTheStupid, thanks! Then by ablative armor you mean the buffs (and not the pets/summons)? Yes, I use all the buffs I can get my hands on, it is additional bodies in pets/summons that I generally consider cheating (because they always make any game much easier). Now, I haven't played unfair yet, so I can't tell you if unfair is reasonable without pets (if it is not, I will just stick to Hard -no complaints here from me)

Mirror image/displacement, mostly.

And summons/CC's.


But it is easier with "proper" tank. I.e. who can keep 3-4 enemies reliably on him while your full team goes DPS.

Your tank can have easily like +10 AC more than Valerie at lvl 8 (+2 AC from hafling feat, +1 size, +3 from Dex, +2-3 from CE, +AC from proper feats instead Bastard sword (you will use Arcane protector anyway) etc)

 

[Trashos]

Desiderius, cheers, I will take a look into Archaeologist, I have never used it.

Are you getting hit because you’re flat-footed? Hargulka should be the last thing that hits you on a non-crit other than Bokken/Owlbear.

Well look, sometimes it is the flat footedness (and yes, I know about uncanny dodge, but I don't get it early), but it is also the cyclops, and I am pretty sure that the goblins (in the village with the hydras, not the fort) could hit me just fine too (didn't check to see if they were crits, but they happened too often to be crits). In the case of worgs it is a billion worgs surrounding you and attacking you each round, tripping you and opportunistically hitting you when you get up. I do not remember right now if they could hit me without crits, but with so many attacks they are going to crit you anyway.

Yes, web/grease etc can help, but there are only so many spell slots. Are you seriously telling me that you don't get hit by worgs?

You can plan around random just fine.

I mostly have the skill checks in mind for the randomness issue.

 

[LannTheStupid]

Then by ablative armor you mean the buffs

Probably, I just don't know English.

Ablative armor is armor which prevents damage through the process of ablation, the removal of material from the surface of an object by vaporization, chipping, or other erosive processes.

So yes, I am using pets and summons as meat shields, who should "be chipped or removed from the fight" and thus prevent the party from damage.

(I am talking about crpgs, I understand why physical dice are better left untampered with

If a CRPG claims to implement any existing RPG system then the dice is the last part it should tamper with. Because without emulating the dice the game will have nothing in common with any tabletop setting.

 

[Desiderius]

There are no crits on skill checks.

 

[Trashos]

There are no crits on skill checks.

That is not my point, though. My point is that I just had to reload 3 times to succeed in a skill check where I needed to roll a 4.

 

[Desiderius]

Archeologists (and Barbs) get Uncanny Dodge at lvl 2.

Whisper is right about Hargulka (and no reason to take Val there anyway) but there are only a few mobs like that. Enraged Owlbears, Bokken, etc. Tanking those is a waste but if you play tight all your melee should be hard to hit for everything else, including Gobs.

There’s even a couple helms that give you a bonus vs gobs.

The extra 10AC he’s talking about is a waste by midgame because it does nothing for the real issue - nat 20s.

Regular Cyclops shouldn’t even be a problem (although their actual 20/20 crits can really hurt), it’s the 3 or 4 Greaters that need extra attention. Tank with Image/Displacement and focus fire on those. Blind helps a lot.

 

[Desiderius]

There are no crits on skill checks.

That is not my point, though. My point is that I just had to reload 3 times to succeed in a skill check where I needed to roll a 4.

What level?

 

[LannTheStupid]

My point is that I just had to reload 3 times to succeed in a skill check where I needed to roll a 4.

Then what you need is Taking 10.

May be it can be implemented as a mod.

 

[Desiderius]

Archeologists Luck also works on Skill Checks.

 

[Desiderius]

The tools are there to blow out every check by lvl 8 at the latest, but I guess a normal distribution would be more realistic.

 

[Desiderius]

My point is that I just had to reload 3 times to succeed in a skill check where I needed to roll a 4.

Then what you need is Taking 10.

May be it can be implemented as a mod.

It’s in game via Touch of Law. Archeologists get it for Trickery at 6.

 

[Desiderius]

Touch of Luck/Brilliant Inspiration is reroll take best.