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

[Desiderius]

I'm directly comparing the highest level spells though. Anyway, some of the strongest spells are in the 5-7 range in 2e D&D. I honestly can't think of a single spell in WOTR or PFKM that really wows me in terms of field-clearing damage. Honestly you'd probably be better off just casting 1quickened fireball + fireball than using a level 8 spell.

And yeah, I specifically said "offensively" and "aoe". Spells are good in Pathfinder for debuffing and buffing. That's how I played too. Doesn't change the above argument.

No, you just suck. We all did. It gets better.

The higher level AoEs do damage with an added effect or are harder to avoid etc...

In Wrath you've got spells that do Holy damage and what not as well.

 

[Desiderius]

Spellcasting so far is very weak. Amiri is the biggest damage dealer, even my tank deals more damage. There aren't even that good CC spells, or debuffs with huge maluses. For example you need to land some spell, but first you need to lower target defenses. Your debuff spell doesn't work and then your primary spell also fail. Shitton of scrolls that add some measly +1 to resistance/roll, WTF is this worthless shit? I have to stack these from four sources, to get +4. Rolls of course can screw you easily. I've dropped the diff from challenging to normal because for a first playthrough i thought it was going too slow/hard/too much micromanaging this shit.

Play a Bard.

 

[Zeriel]

Lol why is fireball even doing sneak damage? Isn't that only supposed to be on touch attacks? I freely admit I must "suck" if I don't understand why the game breaks its own rules, but I was able to finish the game multiple times anyway so I don't really care. That was just my experience. If you find otherwise fair enough.

I concur with regards to sneak attacks in general though--they are busted and probably a large part of why melee seems so powerful since you almost always sneak attack.

 

[Desiderius]

Lol why is fireball even doing sneak damage? Isn't that only supposed to be on touch attacks? I freely admit I must "suck" if I don't understand why the game breaks its own rules, but I was able to finish the game multiple times anyway so I don't really care. That was just my experience. If you find otherwise fair enough.

I concur with regards to sneak attacks in general though--they are busted and probably a large part of why melee seems so powerful since you almost always sneak attack.

That Fireball was doing sneak damage because the Surprise Spells ability (Arcane Trickster lvl 10) is the distinguishing feature of one the main classes in P:K. I still don't understand people pontificating about shit when they have no idea what they're talking about. Doesn't make sense.

Sneak Attacks aren't busted. They're chip damage on those Fireballs. Learn to use metamagic if you want to nuke effectively.

 

[Zeriel]

Lol why is fireball even doing sneak damage? Isn't that only supposed to be on touch attacks? I freely admit I must "suck" if I don't understand why the game breaks its own rules, but I was able to finish the game multiple times anyway so I don't really care. That was just my experience. If you find otherwise fair enough.

I concur with regards to sneak attacks in general though--they are busted and probably a large part of why melee seems so powerful since you almost always sneak attack.

That Fireball was doing sneak damage because the Surprise Spells ability (Arcane Trickster lvl 10) is the distinguishing feature of one the main classes in P:K. I still don't understand people pontificating about shit when they have no idea what they're talking about. Doesn't make sense.

Sneak Attacks aren't busted. They're chip damage on those Fireballs. Learn to use metamagic if you want to nuke effectively.

I mean the game has like 100 different class archetypes. I don't think it's that surprising that not everyone knows every single one.

 

[Average Manatee]

I'm not understanding how you get 1092 damage from polar ray's base 20d6 (assuming you are level 20, though you could boost that a little with specialization feats). Even empowered and maximized that's gotta be some kind of bug or exploit. Is it critting and benefiting from some kind of crit multiplication from weapons?

Also some weirdness going on in how Hellfire's ray is saying 135 / 2 * 2 = 202 damage. That's some sensible math there.

 

[LannTheStupid]

I don't think it's that surprising that not everyone knows every single one.

Especially the possible prestige class of the only wizard companion that is given in the earliest stages of the game.

Play DoS-3 may be?

 

[Desiderius]

Not just possible but obviously pre-built for.

I'm not understanding how you get 1092 damage from polar ray's base 20d6 (assuming you are level 20, though you could boost that a little with specialization feats). Even empowered and maximized that's gotta be some kind of bug or exploit. Is it critting and benefiting from some kind of crit multiplication from weapons?

Also some weirdness going on in how Hellfire's ray is saying 135 / 2 * 2 = 202 damage. That's some sensible math there.

Nope. No exploits. Just good gear from good KM. If everyone didn't believe the release day meme that KM was a waste of time maybe more people would have figured these things out for themselves and had fun doing so.

The x2 is from the crit, the /2 is from Hellfire Ray splitting damage (all the actual damage here is from the Unholy half, which is the joke) and the boost from 135 to 202 is from Empower.

90% of the time when you assume something about this game is broken at this point the joke's on you.

 

[Zeriel]

The thing is people don't have to figure those things out for themselves. If I had been driven to figure them out I probably would have, but the path of least resistance was just throwing haste on melee and one shotting everything.

 

[Average Manatee]

Nope. No exploits. Just good gear from good KM. If everyone didn't believe the release day meme that KM was a waste of time maybe more people would have figured these things out for themselves and had fun doing so.

Explain that then

The x2 is from the crit, the /2 is from Hellfire Ray splitting damage (all the actual damage here is from the Unholy half, which is the joke) and the boost from 135 to 202 is from Empower.

That doesn't make sense. Hellfire is 15d6 base damage. Maximized and empowered = 15 * 6 * 1.5 = 135 damage. If you then go from 135 to 202 damage then you somehow empowered twice?

Also its obviously an exploit if sneak attack is applied 6x to the spell rather than only 1.

 

[bayoubilly]

This IS what character classes represent and facilitate. Having a character class means they have trained just enough to become competent in that vocation—the assumed amount of time it took would be different between classes, but the wizard can cast a spell, and the fighter is not wholly defenseless with a weapon. This is (or can be) interpreted to explain why classes are barred from certain skills or abilities; game mechanics aside (the real reason), would a wizard who spent a decade or more to learn offensive spells, take [ie. waste] the time training to become proficient swinging a sharpened stick?—and be okay with being seen to win not by use of magic, but by hitting their enemy with a rock? Vise versa with a veteran warrior being reduced to using cantrips to win duels by —cheating—.

It extrapolates not why they can't learn to use it, but why they would never choose to learn to use it.


Limited respec? The simplest way is to not give the option, and have the player accept people as they are. Using Minsc as example, suppose that odd level intelligence was to —ensure— they could not gain the bonus immediately.

The worse problem is the developers who design respeccing into the game from the outset, even building the gameplay around it! It limits and cheapens the PC, and NPC alike, for no commitments have any weight —or teeth when they are decided. Nothing is written in stone, and anything can be backpedaled out of. That is when the characters truly become just a list of optional numbers; interchangeable ones at that. For with that, one can no longer write a personality based on the statistics; the game doesn't hold you to their consequences.

Fair enough. There is certainly an argument that character's should not be perfectly optimized for realism reasons. There are plenty of athletes irl who are smart but whose careers would have been better off if they traded their smarts for some extra strength - they aren't respecing irl and so the game should reflect that. Done properly, this really does enhance the game and make the characters feel like real people. Valerie for example is obviously meant to be our tank. Meta she is low on strength and wastes points in a dump stat and needs to reallocate. But lore and irl realism wise, it is fantastic. we meet her and through dialogue learn she is a woman so good looking they made a temple around her. if we allowed meta fuckery, we would end the conversation and proceed to have a 120lb in full plate casually overpower men and monsters twice her size and then fail a dialogue check to get a horny drunk to tell us what time it is. instead we end our conversation and then proceed to have her pass a difficult persuade check and enter combat with a unique tank who cant knock an orc off it's feet, but can instead do their CC duties by distracting/frightening them. not allowing for respecing into a meta optimized build was transformative. in my mind, the devs took an absurd but required part of the narrative and transformed it from a token throwaway character into one of the most compelling so far. Love her or hate her, the character elicits real emotion in players - not because the concept is stupid, but because of the character's personality. In this sort of case, and other less dramatic examples of this, I think it is fair to say you are objectively correct.

but what about in the other type of case - where the preset makes absolutely zero sense and has nothing to do with the personality/plot? there are plenty of games where you need to actively minimize your xp gain so you can get to your companions before they level up in a seemingly random fashion. off the top of my head - khelgar ironfist from nwn 2. by the time you get to him he is at least level 3. npc fighters have 1 useful skill - taunt. when you find him he is actively taunting people into throwing the first punch at him. you would think he leveled - both meta logic and the character's dialogue support this. instead you have craft weapons - something he never talks about doing and the oc hasn't implemented. someone just decided that this was the correct autolevel for all fighters and therefore khelgar got it. Respecing in this case seems almost like a patch rather than an exploit.

For those people there is the rogue-like DLC. An ideal place to test builds which does not take time of a full playthrough.

The main game is not the place to test builds; or it is for those who reroll after Act 1.

completely agree. you would think noobs would benefit from respec and all of their companions starting with perfect builds - but knowing what does not work and why is just as important as knowing what works. if you have shitty builds your first playthrough because you don't know the systems - lower the difficulty and keep learning. if they do understand the system - no need for mc respec - you know what you are doing. building yourself for a powerful early game and weak late game is a strategy decision not an argument the game is missing a feature.

Oh it's definitely replayable and you can get different-enough experiences on different playthroughs for it to be worth it. The game has a decent amount of impactful C&C. (Plus, for example some dialogue options here and there - some with medium-term, a few even with far-reaching consequences, not even obvious as such - are locked to your alignment.)

The thing is though, it's such a humungous game that you might not want to play through it again immediately afterwards, you'll be so exhausted. But it's there for the future, and you'll probably get a hankering for it again at some point (I know I did).

It's also got a lot of mods (basically a whole set of 'em based around Call of the Wild and numerous dependent mods) that provide added value for builds and gameplay.

nice. anything I miss by not being chaotic? I figure they handle CG as a hippie to LG's nerd, and CE as animalistic evil vs. LE's sustainable evil?

 

[Desiderius]

Explain that then

No. Discover it for yourself. It's fun. That isn't even my screenshot.

There are all kinds of equipment and abilities that modify the numbers. Again, you don't know what you don't know yet but you're jumping to conclusions. Why do so many people do this?

As for exploit give me a break - you can see for yourself right in the picture that the Sneaks are mere chip damage. If you couldn't get the Sneaks on each Ray you couldn't compete with someone using a Bow to get iteratives.

 

[Desiderius]

anything I miss by not being chaotic? I figure they handle CG as a hippie to LG's nerd, and CE as animalistic evil vs. LE's sustainable evil?

There are some good Neutral specific options as well.

 

[Average Manatee]

Explain that then

No. Discover it for yourself. It's fun. That isn't even my screenshot.

There are all kinds of equipment and abilities that modify the numbers. Again, you don't know what you don't know yet but you're jumping to conclusions. Why do so many people do this?

You're the one bragging about how you can deal over 1000 damage with a spell that is naturally capped at 150. The burden of proof is on you.

As for exploit give me a break - you can see for yourself right in the picture that the Sneaks are mere chip damage. If you couldn't get the Sneaks on each Ray you couldn't compete with someone using a Bow to get iteratives.

You say that as if iterative attacks are actually a thing that matters. If you can take a -10 to hit and still hit something consistently it wasn't a threat worth caring about. Let alone -15.

 

[Desiderius]

I'm not bragging about anything, I'm refuting idiots who think they've mastered the game before they've even scratched the surface.

As I said, that's not even my shot. The guy who did it explained how he achieved it. It's legit.

Git gud.

 

[Desiderius]

So much talking out of the ass, so little understanding.

65 minus 10 is still +55. You got some big threat that +55 isn't hitting, champ?

 

[Average Manatee]

As I said, that's not even my shot. The guy who did it explained how he achieved it. It's legit.

We're supposed to believe it's legit, because you say it's legit, despite the other screenshot you posted being obviously an exploit that you admitted in the next post? That you immediately started rationalizing over how it didn't count as an exploit because of completely backwards and mutually opposed logical statements? Considering that you are conjuring up literally around 800 extra damage for polar as opposed to around 200 for hellfire ray?

 

[Desiderius]

What exploit? The Sneaks that added an extra 10% damage? That's a design decision, not an exploit.

Admit you're wrong - it beats beclowning yourself repeatedly in front of people who know better.

 

[Average Manatee]

What exploit? The Sneaks that added an extra 10% damage? That's a design decision, not an exploit.

Admit you're wrong - it beats beclowning yourself repeatedly in front of people who know better.

If it was a design decision you'd be able to do it with all the other spells. You can't, because it's not. It doesn't even make any logical sense within the system, just because an attack does split damage the sneak damage gets applied to both splits? Yeah no.

Furthermore why did you tacitly admit it was an exploit here? If it wasn't an exploit why would you ever need to justify it as a way to compete with bows? You can't seem to keep your story straight.

As for exploit give me a break - you can see for yourself right in the picture that the Sneaks are mere chip damage. If you couldn't get the Sneaks on each Ray you couldn't compete with someone using a Bow to get iteratives.

Maybe if you stopped trying to bullshit people then people would believe you.

View attachment 19955

25d6 + 25 instead of 25d6 is not enough to explain a damage increase of around ~750 on a ~250 spell.

 

[Zeriel]

I'm not bragging about anything, I'm refuting idiots who think they've mastered the game before they've even scratched the surface.

As I said, that's not even my shot. The guy who did it explained how he achieved it. It's legit.

Git gud.

No one said they mastered the game, I said in my experience spellcasting was not as powerful as in other D&D-inspired games. You're the one who went, "Nuh uh you're not as elite as me, suck on it n00bs". Spellcasting in Infinity Engine games didn't require special feats or knowing a particular subclass to be busted. Sounds like you inferred a lot of things that just didn't exist in people's posts--or just wanted an excuse to brag. I don't really care, enjoy yourself I guess, but don't pretend like we were saying things we weren't.

 

[Desiderius]

You can do it with other spells. It's perfectly logical. Each arrow gets sneaks and so do rays. I didn't admit anything. Rays get sneaks. I'm not bullshitting anyone - I'm demonstrating that you're mistaken. I showed you one item, there are other items like it. That's how he got to 1000. Why not try it yourself?

Can someone explain to me how there are so many +1 SD people who think they're +3? I just don't get it.

You can live a great life as a +1. Maybe you're a +2 that just doesn't know how to deal with being wrong. There's no shame in that either. Why continue to dig? In public?

 

[Desiderius]

No one said they mastered the game, I said in my experience spellcasting was not as powerful as in other D&D-inspired games. You're the one who went, "Nuh uh you're not as elite as me, suck on it n00bs". Spellcasting in Infinity Engine games didn't require special feats or knowing a particular subclass to be busted. Sounds like you inferred a lot of things that just didn't exist in people's posts--or just wanted an excuse to brag. I don't really care, enjoy yourself I guess, but don't pretend like we were saying things we weren't.

You did - my bad. None of this is about me being elite, it's about the nature of the game and people misrepresenting it. That Polar Ray isn't even mine.

Spellcasting in Infinity Engine games sure did require specific feats, spells, and a knowledge of the strengths of different classes. The whole claim to fame of BG2 is sophisticated Mage battles.

That subclass isn't busted, the sneaks are solid damage but most of the damage is simply from using Metamagic which I mean what else are you taking if you're a caster? It's a basic part of the game that you learn unless you come in with the preconceived notion that nukes suck (as I did!) then don't bother to find out for yourself (I did - I found out I was wrong).

 

[Zeriel]

Fair enough btw. I do concede the point. I didn't know about the feat Arcane Trickster has that lets them apply sneak attacks to all spells. That's actually really cool. I just played the game blind like I played old D&D games and the purely offensive spells didn't seem that great to me. But I can see the potential after what you said.

And yeah, as far as maximize/empower... maybe it's because I started playing with 2e, but I just always thought of maximize and metamagic as "making you have better rolls/less shitty luck" not doubling damage. Guess it's my old boomer brain fault for never really experimenting more.

 

[Desiderius]

Fair enough btw. I do concede the point. I didn't know about the feat Arcane Trickster has that lets them apply sneak attacks to all spells. That's actually really cool. I just played the game blind like I played old D&D games and the purely offensive spells didn't seem that great to me. But I can see the potential after what you said.

And yeah, as far as maximize/empower... maybe it's because I started playing with 2e, but I just always thought of maximize and metamagic as "making you have better rolls/less shitty luck" not doubling damage. Guess it's my old boomer brain fault for never really experimenting more.

Exactly. I would have been stuck in the exact same rut but guys like Shadenuat and that Polar Ray guy made me have to revise my priors.

Turns out you can build for both control and damage and there are situations that require one or the other. Nukes are great for instance against ambushes.

 

[Yosharian]

Also its obviously an exploit if sneak attack is applied 6x to the spell rather than only 1.

It's not an exploit as the game developers have intentionally left it in. It is a big departure from how it works in PnP though.