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

[Sergiu64]

Solo or group?

Group of course. That's kinda the thing - a well optimized group can have well optimized characters in every slot. Saying that an Aldori Swordlord can be just as good because your caster should be disabling encounters ignores the fact that the group with SS will have the same disabling caster. But when the said caster is out of spells - suddenly the power level of your melee characters starts to matter more. And that's not mentioning things like optimizing damage output and automatic trips, ability to go Nova, etc.

You don't need optimized characters. You need optimized tactics. You want to take advantage of AoOs and Trip? Trip a guy, then surround him with your team and watch him die as he tries to get up.

Battlefield control, do you do that? Are you making sure your characters are in flanking position while the other team can't, because you threw up a Wall of Fire dividing the other group maybe and they don't want to go through it.

Why would optimized tactics be separate from optimized characters? Of course most fights go easy with Battlefield control - but speaking about optimization - why bring up a suboptimal way of controlling the battlefield?

 

[Mangoose]

Solo or group?

Group of course. That's kinda the thing - a well optimized group can have well optimized characters in every slot. Saying that an Aldori Swordlord can be just as good because your caster should be disabling encounters ignores the fact that the group with SS will have the same disabling caster. But when the said caster is out of spells - suddenly the power level of your melee characters starts to matter more. And that's not mentioning things like optimizing damage output and automatic trips, ability to go Nova, etc.

You don't need optimized characters. You need optimized tactics. You want to take advantage of AoOs and Trip? Trip a guy, then surround him with your team and watch him die as he tries to get up.

Battlefield control, do you do that? Are you making sure your characters are in flanking position while the other team can't, because you threw up a Wall of Fire dividing the other group maybe and they don't want to go through it.

Why would optimized tactics be separate from optimized characters? Of course most fights go easy with Battlefield control - but speaking about optimization - why bring up a suboptimal way of controlling the battlefield?

Because the battlefield always changes. The enemy selection isn't always the same, same goes for positioning. Your plan must be ever-changing. You have to adapt. What do you do if one of your guys dies?

And I have no idea what "suboptimal" means in terms of control. Was it "suboptimal" to have one character pull three enemies away (and possibly die) so I can outnumber and focus fire a smaller group?

These are things you think of DURING the fight.

 

[Desiderius]

A lot of people were looking for functional (as opposed to optimal) and given bad advice based on MMOs and 3.5. Turned out not to even be optimal. I was surprised as anyone.

The original discussion was more about single vs multi than Lord vs Saint.

 

[Sergiu64]

Because the battlefield always changes. The enemy selection isn't always the same, same goes for positioning. Your plan must be ever-changing. You have to adapt. What do you do if one of your guys dies?

And I have no idea what "suboptimal" means in terms of control. Was it "suboptimal" to have one character pull three enemies away (and possibly die) so I can outnumber and focus fire a smaller group?

These are things you think of DURING the fight.

Ok. Good luck with your Wall of Fire then.

 

[Mangoose]

Because the battlefield always changes. The enemy selection isn't always the same, same goes for positioning. Your plan must be ever-changing. You have to adapt. What do you do if one of your guys dies?

And I have no idea what "suboptimal" means in terms of control. Was it "suboptimal" to have one character pull three enemies away (and possibly die) so I can outnumber and focus fire a smaller group?

These are things you think of DURING the fight.

Ok. Good luck with your Wall of Fire then.

I looked at my spells. I looked at how best to use my turn. I used Wall of Fire from my Battle Oracle.

And that was only one turn.

You think that was the ONLY thing I did for battlefield control? I'm moving my guys around, vanishing if needed, I don't even know, sometimes a weird opportunity opens up for me to win completely unorthodox.

See, I can't really explain what I do because every situation is different. Every turn is different. I of course come in with strategies and tactics in mind, but in the fight, it's constantly changing ideas. Sometimes I don't want a Wall of Fire. Sometimes I don't want a decoy. To be honest, I didn't even think "decoy," I just thought - separate these guys so I can flank and then focus fire. Edit: And sometimes (often) my ideas fail, in which case I have to come up with another idea - I don't have a plan B because the plan A was unplanned.

Have you never played a tactical game before? You know D&D is derived from wargames, correct?

 

[Mangoose]

Boyd pictured military strategy and tactics a feedback loop (well, one that was supposed to happen all "at once")

He separated the loop into Observe->Orient->Decide->Act->Observe->Orient>... (etc) Ignore all the little details in this pic. Those are more like examples or elaborations or whatnot.

And I've outed myself as a nerd.

 

[Jvegi]

So... No spellcaster npcs after chapter I if I've missed the slavers quest, am I getting this one right?

Thank you ruskie bastards. Shitmakers.

I'll get a merc, I guess. Npcs are badly written anyway.

 

[LannTheStupid]

What did you do to miss the slaver's quest? Never have gone to the Stag Lord father home, never have gone to Thorn Ford or what? Spent all the time farming random encounters?

 

[Jvegi]

What did you do to miss the slaver's quest? Never have gone to the Stag Lord father home, never have gone to Thorn Ford or what? Spent all the time farming random encounters?

Reloaded the two times I've met them. I was level 2, too much to handle. They never came up when I was higher level.

You saying it's my fault? I blame the ruskies.

 

[Jackpot]

I've been playing turn-based mode and it's been pretty fun, it really gives another perspective to the gameplay makes you realize just HOW FUCKING AWFUL YOUR ROLLS ARE.
I GOT FIVE NATURAL ONES IN A SINGLE SMALL ENCOUNTER
FIVE
I'VE HAD TO RELOAD ENCOUNTERS MULTIPLE TIMES BECAUSE I JUST WOULDN'T ROLL ABOVE A TEN.
I LOOKED THROUGH MY COMBAT LOGS ONCE AND SAW TWO NATURAL ONES AND NO ROLLS ABOVE EIGHT FOR TWELVE ROLLS. TWELVE. THIS IS IN THE FIRST CHAPTER.

 

[Sergiu64]

What did you do to miss the slaver's quest? Never have gone to the Stag Lord father home, never have gone to Thorn Ford or what? Spent all the time farming random encounters?

Didn't happen to me either in one run. Think I stayed away from the forested area where the trigger for meeting them is.

 

[Haplo]

The charge still stays on your sword (scimitar, if you're doing it right).

Actually scimitars aren't great in Pathfinder Kingmaker. Many weapons with such crit range (estocs, fauchards, rapier, kukuris, but also duelling swords, falcata), no Dervish Dance (in vanilla), unimpressive enchantments (falcata, longsword, fauchard boast x3 crit modifiers... there's also a sick increased threat range greataxe... +15 as far as damage is concerned).
Worst of all, d6 damage. In a game where size increasing effects are so common and plentiful, that's almost a sin.

 

[Desiderius]

The trigger is the whole NW corner of the map. You’d have to skip that entire half of first quest. Or ignore quest that pops after random encounter.

 

[Mangoose]

The charge still stays on your sword (scimitar, if you're doing it right).

Actually scimitars aren't great in Pathfinder Kingmaker. Many weapons with such crit range (estocs, fauchards, rapier, kukuris, but also duelling swords, falcata), no Dervish Dance (in vanilla)

Okay I was talking about with COTW. I agree what you said in general. Dervish Dance is the only thing I was referring to - and with respect to Magus.

Worst of all, d6 damage. In a game where size increasing effects are so common and plentiful, that's almost a sin.

Well, for a Magus, that crit range is for touch spell. The crit multiplier btw is always 2x. But a keen Scimitar for example makes Shocking Grasp crit from 15-20. Besides that, we can an arcane pool to enchant with, which I didn't really use much until recently and omg it can damage. For example you can throw Keen lol.

Actually this is why Unchained Rogue is better than Chained - you get Dex to Dmg for the weapon you choose, so your damage isn't all coming from sneak attacking.

 

[Nano]

I was level 2, too much to handle.

Always have that encounter at level 3+, but IIRC the enemies there are low level enough to be affected by Daze, how is that too hard for you?

 

[Desiderius]

Two Clerics, too headstrong to ask for help, blames game when he sux instead of gitting gud. Spoiled brat.

The usual.

 

[NJClaw]

The charge still stays on your sword (scimitar, if you're doing it right).

Actually scimitars aren't great in Pathfinder Kingmaker. Many weapons with such crit range (estocs, fauchards, rapier, kukuris, but also duelling swords, falcata), no Dervish Dance (in vanilla), unimpressive enchantments (falcata, longsword, fauchard boast x3 crit modifiers... there's also a sick increased threat range greataxe... +15 as far as damage is concerned).
Worst of all, d6 damage. In a game where size increasing effects are so common and plentiful, that's almost a sin.

But THUNDERING CLAW OF THE BEAR GOD is such a cool name

 

[Mangoose]

The charge still stays on your sword (scimitar, if you're doing it right).

Actually scimitars aren't great in Pathfinder Kingmaker. Many weapons with such crit range (estocs, fauchards, rapier, kukuris, but also duelling swords, falcata), no Dervish Dance (in vanilla), unimpressive enchantments (falcata, longsword, fauchard boast x3 crit modifiers... there's also a sick increased threat range greataxe... +15 as far as damage is concerned).
Worst of all, d6 damage. In a game where size increasing effects are so common and plentiful, that's almost a sin.

But THUNDERING CLAW OF THE BEAR GOD is such a cool name

Actually... if you're dipping in crossblood sorc to increase +2 elect damage per damage die roll.. Maybe. Maybe.

 

[Jvegi]

Two Clerics, too headstrong to ask for help, blames game when he sux instead of gitting gud. Spoiled brat.

The usual.

Just saying locking an essential class behind a skippable quest without informing the player is BAD DESIGN.

 

[Mangoose]

I've been playing turn-based mode and it's been pretty fun, it really gives another perspective to the gameplay makes you realize just HOW FUCKING AWFUL YOUR ROLLS ARE.
I GOT FIVE NATURAL ONES IN A SINGLE SMALL ENCOUNTER
FIVE
I'VE HAD TO RELOAD ENCOUNTERS MULTIPLE TIMES BECAUSE I JUST WOULDN'T ROLL ABOVE A TEN.
I LOOKED THROUGH MY COMBAT LOGS ONCE AND SAW TWO NATURAL ONES AND NO ROLLS ABOVE EIGHT FOR TWELVE ROLLS. TWELVE. THIS IS IN THE FIRST CHAPTER.

Pretty much.

And. Ironically. This is how you notice if battlefield changes and then adapt for the next turn. It's not that you need turn-based to do this, it's that Pathfinder is turnbased and so turns are how they expect you to move and do things. In other words, Pathfinder was not developed for realtime mechanics - if it were, then it would have to be somewhat redesigned so that you had user friendly tools to keep track of all the resources. TLDR: Pathfinder is built on a turnbased platform (Honestly, D&D was a wargame, I can't remember the name but even now move->attack phases are still in wargames.. 40k.. Warmacine..

There are some interesting simultaneous turn games though. Check out Frozen Synapse. It ain't easy because you're both taking the turn at the same time, and it's with modern guns or rocket launchers. Merely losing cover at the same time they see you = they will attack (You actually can set up whether to move and overwatch (or in other cases, moving via sidestepping if want to be ready to shoot while moving... It actually is a lot of micromanagement... though this is in terms of how you set up your move.. Because you can't change your move. In other words, when the turn starts, it is real time, and you don't get to change any part of your plan. The examples I gave are a very very simplistic explanation.

Two Clerics, too headstrong to ask for help, blames game when he sux instead of gitting gud. Spoiled brat.

The usual.

Just saying locking an essential class behind a skippable quest without informing the player is BAD DESIGN.

Agreed. What I said was specific to the difficulties of coding but this kind of design flaw... Well, it's essentially like shit website design. It's not clear. And the number one thing you want you want from a site is someone else never get confused. That's one way to test your site - give it to a random friend and watch them. If they have to ask how to do something.. then you need to figure out how to clarify that "something" without being asked.

 

[LannTheStupid]

Reloaded the two times I've met them. I was level 2, too much to handle.

The first fight with the Technic League is meant to be lost. You will get some additional content in return. Skill checks are the same in both cases, I think.

They never came up when I was higher level.

This is even more brilliant than I thought.

Well, enjoy your game without 2 best companions from the story point of view.

 

[Desiderius]

He didn't come for joy.

 

[Desiderius]

The Spit Venom thing finally works:

Spoiler

Hunter gets some decent offensive spells that you can finally use by midgame after picking up the buffs. One is Spit Venom (Clerics get this but usually can't use it since not ranged, Ember gets it in Wrath but Demons immune). The deal with Spit Venom is that if you hit (ranged Touch) there is no Save against the Blind. It's only for one round but that's usually enough, you can repeat, etc...

Blind is good because it helps on offense and defense. Flatfooted helps our Investigator get a hit in (first of four due to Beast Shape at solid damage).

Ideally you don't want your Investigator attacked by an Owlbear but the Concealment from the Blind reduces the hit chance from 3/5 to 9/25.

And since that Owlbear came with a DC 22 Dominate Monster Aura couldn't really afford to mess around.

That whole "fighting as a Dragon" thing not seeming like such a pressing concern for some reason. This Wand saves a lot of slots.

 

[Mangoose]

Reloaded the two times I've met them. I was level 2, too much to handle.

The first fight with the Technic League is meant to be lost. You will get some additional content in return. Skill checks are the same in both cases, I think.

They never came up when I was higher level.

This is even more brilliant than I thought.

Well, enjoy your game without 2 best companions from the story point of view.

Pffft I got tired of Regongar hitting on me. At least you can tell someone in real life not to bother you, but Regongar does not stop.

 

[Xamenos]

but Regongar does not stop.

He does. It doesn't even take that long.