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

[Yosharian]

Oh sure, you get a lot of those resources - but they are still limited, and require activation, which can get annoying. Mutagen's fire-and-forget nature has its appeal, that's the point I was making

 

[Haplo]

Bites and reach weapons like a fauchard don't really work together unless you want to give up reach.

I don't care about reach much in this case. And in real time you sort of slide into bite range anyway.

 

[Desiderius]

Oh sure, you get a lot of those resources - but they are still limited, and require activation, which can get annoying. Mutagen's fire-and-forget nature has its appeal, that's the point I was making

Absolutely. I haven't played Inq yet in Wrath (outside of Lann ZA3/SH once) since it's so easy to get Swift-clogged and Swift timing is clunky in RTwP.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I did a lot of experimentation with the Vivisectionist due to the hype. Ultimately, I was not impressed. It blooms too late and requires too much resource expenditure to operate ideally. Great for huge maps with lots of mooks, but unfortunately KM is mostly about large quantities of small to medium maps with key fights. Kingmaker, attrition is thy name. Viv just didn't have it. A full fighter or slayer performed much better. Full BAB and more feats gave me access to features that mattered more and couldn't be attained elsewhere. Party casters easily replaced buffs like Displacement and Improved Invisibility. A little UMD and the abundant scrolls could do the rest. AC is very easy to come by in KM anyhow, which almost makes many of those buffs superfluous.

 

[Bigg Boss]

I'm starting to burnout on this game which I except is due to how much longer combat takes in TB mode. How much longer do I have at the Armag plotline?

 

[Sarathiour]

Armag plotlinei n itslef is pretty short, you next got two yeaars of kingdom managment before pitax kick in, with the infamous hellknight backer quest in the meantime.

Pitax is okay but not very difficult.

After that it's the House, and that's probably the point when you're going to quit.

Spoiler

Depending on your decision once you reach the end of the house, you can either finish here or go for an extra lap against LK

 

[Haplo]

Well, 2 more chapters. Technically can be 3, but the 3rd is short and optional.

Yeah, Pitax is very easy if you got a solid party.

Then the end-game kicks in.

 

[Grunker]

I'm starting to burnout on this game which I except is due to how much longer combat takes in TB mode. How much longer do I have at the Armag plotline?

Yeah, you're at the start of the end where the game slowly becomes worse - primarly due to more and more lackluster difficulty and encounter design (well, except for swarms which may fuck you depending on your build). However for some Pitax can be a step up from Armag, so you might stick around for that.

House of the End of Time is where most people quit, but it's also kind of where the writing is best (still nothing great, just more interesting than previously).

 

[Yosharian]

Has anyone here played with Kingdom Management on automatic and can explain exactly how the mechanics are different? I know that you lose access to Artisans but apart from that I'm not sure

 

[Haplo]

Has anyone here played with Kingdom Management on automatic and can explain exactly how the mechanics are different? I know that you lose access to Artisans but apart from that I'm not sure

Loosing access to most of the best items in the game would be way too painful for me.

 

[Yosharian]

Has anyone here played with Kingdom Management on automatic and can explain exactly how the mechanics are different? I know that you lose access to Artisans but apart from that I'm not sure

Loosing access to most of the best items in the game would be way too painful for me.

Yeah but I have an alternative to getting them that way

 

[Desiderius]

Biggest problem with Armag on is all the work you put into KM the whole game has no payoff and the cool lategame buildings they obviously put a lot of effort into designing do nothing if your stats are already maxxed.

I guess they anticipated people struggling to avoid losing their kingdoms and needing the help?

Armag feels long because you’ve been locked out of advancing your Kingdom ranks via relentless time pressure for a long time. That’s about to let up for a bit. Then after Pitax too much.

 

[gurugeorge]

I've lost interest with PFK after Pitax with like 3 characters (although one of them got about halfway through the House before I dozed off). I'm really trying to push a current character that I picked up with some enthusiasm from the midgame through to the end now, but I don't know if I can even manage that

The damnable thing is that as someone said above, the writing around post-Pitax is quite good, the Fey/Elders make a great, sinister/ambiguous villain group (far better than the monodimensional Demons of WOTR), but somehow the gameplay just gets really dull at that point for me.

 

[Desiderius]

It does.

I think if you can come up with a good plan for Ghosts, Hunt, and Swarms it can be manageable if repetitive. I've only done that once and didn't make it all the way through myself, but I rarely finish games now since I get distracted by some other game coming along.

 

[Yosharian]

The Kingdom Management is the worst aspect for me because I'm constantly being drawn out of the most interesting aspects to manage endless fucking event cards while I wait 2 fucking years for the main story to wake up

Hence why I'm considering just turning the whole fucking system to auto

 

[Desiderius]

The Events are where you get your ranks, which unlocks the items and buffs.



If you're not interested in that just play Depths. The weakness is that they never finished it so there's no back end, but the idea that the KM is just some pointless minigame is incorrect.

 

[Bigg Boss]

The Events are where you get your ranks, which unlocks the items and buffs.

View attachment 24745

If you're not interested in that just play Depths. The weakness is that they never finished it so there's no back end, but the idea that the KM is just some pointless minigame is incorrect.

It's not pointless but it is half-ass and I find myself wanting to turn it off so I can finish the game without wasting time on the stupid event screen for two years like they said.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Armag was my least favorite chapter. Nothing felt more tacked on and bloated. HatEoT is not a bad dungeon*. Way better than Armag's Tomb. You pussies.


*I played the final version of the game that had no bugs.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, I really didn't like how they followed up a rather grueling chapter followed by another chapter.
It really doesn't feel like you have enough time to manage your kingdom, between the chapter events, the Curse and spending two weeks at a time to level up stats.

 

[Desiderius]

Yeah, I really didn't like how they followed up a rather grueling chapter followed by another chapter.
It really doesn't feel like you have enough time to manage your kingdom, between the chapter events, the Curse and spending two weeks at a time to level up stats.

The point is to build tension there and it kind of works because a lot of people come in thinking that KM is just a time-wasting minigame but you really get a sense of relief when you can finally get back too it after Armag. Kind of like losing a certain companion to bring home how big of a contributor her class is.

But yeah it's a major letdown when the benefits KM was giving you through the first three chapters are no longer there for the last three.

You should have gotten the project to reduce level-ups to one week by that point.

 

[Desiderius]

If you've kept your skills up there's a lot of hidden shit in Armag's Tomb, but the enemy selection is sorely lacking.

 

[Average Manatee]

I did a lot of experimentation with the Vivisectionist due to the hype. Ultimately, I was not impressed. It blooms too late and requires too much resource expenditure to operate ideally. Great for huge maps with lots of mooks, but unfortunately KM is mostly about large quantities of small to medium maps with key fights. Kingmaker, attrition is thy name. Viv just didn't have it. A full fighter or slayer performed much better. Full BAB and more feats gave me access to features that mattered more and couldn't be attained elsewhere. Party casters easily replaced buffs like Displacement and Improved Invisibility. A little UMD and the abundant scrolls could do the rest. AC is very easy to come by in KM anyhow, which almost makes many of those buffs superfluous.

I don't really get where you are coming from. Vivisectionist gets combat feats every other level same as fighter/slayer, and Mutagen stat bonuses compensate for being behind in BAB and then some. If you compare Vivi with Slayer you're basically trading study target for being an excellent support spellcaster. And there's lots of good spells that will prevent attrition, e.g. you need one protection vs. poison per map and then if any fight looks tricky you throw down stinking cloud with a "real" caster to auto-win. Your cleric isn't going to have room to bring many of those since he'll be bringing the big buffs for the boss fights, but an extra alchemist can keep a bunch of them so that you can do 4-5 maps without rest. Short duration individual buffs like displacement should only be very rarely needed for bosses or out of place high leveled enemies (and honestly most of the bosses in this game are still pretty easy so it's really only out of place high leveled enemies).

I will grant though that Vivi has a bit of a low spot around levels 9-11ish, with highs around 1-4 and at 14+.

The Kingdom Management is the worst aspect for me because I'm constantly being drawn out of the most interesting aspects to manage endless fucking event cards while I wait 2 fucking years for the main story to wake up

Hence why I'm considering just turning the whole fucking system to auto

The worst is the fucking load times. Checking any notification or doing anything means a ~15s load in and ~15s load out. God help you if you accidentally load into the city which is a ~45s load screen for some reason. If the kingdom management UI and systems were streamlined like a proper strategy game then it'd be way less annoying. And there's no reason passing days shouldn't be instantaneous.

 

[Desiderius]

Mutagen stat bonuses compensate for being behind in BAB and then some

No, it's +2 AB until level 12. You're -1 off the bat from 3/4 so +1 net, then even at lvl 5 and -1 at lvl 9. From lvl 5 to lvl 11 you're behind on AB, don't get iterative until lvl 8 and are behind unlocking Feats like Outflank and Improved Crit, not to mention the problems we saw unlocking Kitsune Pounce for Haplo.

And that doesn't even get into the Malus. By endgame it's fine but by endgame your stats are through the roof whatever you do.

Slayer gets Combat Style Feats, Martial Proficiency, and Medium Armor but fewer Sneaks. Trapfinding is also underrated depending on group make-up.

 

[Yosharian]

I'd bring a Vivi over a Fighter 9 times out of 10 in most situations, even on an archer

Sneak Attack is just too easy to qualify for

 

[Average Manatee]

Mutagen stat bonuses compensate for being behind in BAB and then some

No, it's +2 AB until level 12. You're -1 off the bat from 3/4 so +1 net, then even at lvl 5 and -1 at lvl 9. From lvl 5 to lvl 11 you're behind on AB, don't get iterative until lvl 8 and are behind unlocking Feats like Outflank and Improved Crit, not to mention the problems we saw unlocking Kitsune Pounce for Haplo.

+2 AB/+2 Damage. Yeah sure it's -1 AB/+2 Damage net from level 9 to 13 but cmon, acting like that ruins a class is really just nitpicking. A single buff like Bull's Strength will overcome this deficit.

Iteratives are pretty much meme attacks, anything you can hit with your last iterative is weak enough that you don't care. If you do care though you can take the bite attack to (literally) chew through the weak chaff from level 2.

There's plenty of important, useful feats to take, I don't really see it being that significant of a trade off to take an extra defensive feat and push the offensive feats back by one. It's only Outflank that really hurts, since it also means your other melee can't take it until later.