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

[Desiderius]

Here you can see Harrim's other Domain ability boosting everyone's damage in the first pic, and automatically confirming all crits in the second.

 

[Desiderius]

Here's a case where he failed a Casting Defensively check but there was no AoO and Touch went ahead. Pretty sure I've run into other cases where there was or spell failed.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

I started playing this on the hardest difficulty not being at all familiar with Pathfinder, nor having any idea what I'm doing, and fuck, it's insanely hard. I was already having to use every single spell and special ability just to survive the tutorial. It's possible my build is completely fucked (playing as a Ranger with longbow specialty), but no one in my party can hit jack shit, so battles are a nightmare of RNG (although, I have learned that using the special abilities that increase attack even just slightly can make a massive difference).

I also fucking hate (in fact, loathe), RTWP, which is utter shit because you really have no idea when the masked turns begin or end, and with a game this RNG focused, you kind of need to know that to be successful. I haven't tried turn based mode yet.

Anyhow, I made it to the first village after 2 hours of trial and error. I am very stubborn, love challenges, and always play everything on the hardest difficulty, but ya'll need to let me know if a vanilla Ranger is fine for the hardest difficulty, or if I should restart. My stats are: STR 8, DEX 20, CON 10, INT 12, WIS 16, CHA 8. I took humans for my enemy type perk and the Long Bow specialty perk.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

Is there any good character guides for people who aren’t autistic and want to start this game without fucking them selves over late game?

 

[Yosharian]

Is there any good character guides for people who aren’t autistic and want to start this game without fucking them selves over late game?

*Points at sig*

 

[Desiderius]

I started playing this on the hardest difficulty not being at all familiar with Pathfinder, nor having any idea what I'm doing, and fuck, it's insanely hard. I was already having to use every single spell and special ability just to survive the tutorial. It's possible my build is completely fucked (playing as a Ranger with longbow specialty), but no one in my party can hit jack shit, so battles are a nightmare of RNG (although, I have learned that using the special abilities that increase attack even just slightly can make a massive difference).

I also fucking hate (in fact, loathe), RTWP, which is utter shit because you really have no idea when the masked turns begin or end, and with a game this RNG focused, you kind of need to know that to be successful. I haven't tried turn based mode yet.

Anyhow, I made it to the first village after 2 hours of trial and error. I am very stubborn, love challenges, and always play everything on the hardest difficulty, but ya'll need to let me know if a vanilla Ranger is fine for the hardest difficulty, or if I should restart. My stats are: STR 8, DEX 20, CON 10, INT 12, WIS 16, CHA 8. I took humans for my enemy type perk and the Long Bow specialty perk.

Don't start on the hardest difficulty.

It isn't a bullshit phone game.

 

[Desiderius]

Is there any good character guides for people who aren’t autistic and want to start this game without fucking them selves over late game?

Play the classes, read your abilities, use them. You don't need to do all the 3.5 dips and splashes to be successful (PF was designed to obviate that) but there's no shame in starting on normal and kicking things up as you learn to play.

Bonuses of the same type don't stack so seek out bonuses of different types (Enhancement, Morale, Competence, Sacred, Luck, Circumstance, etc...). Bards are good (once the song is established it doesn't use any actions to maintain, so you can cast, attack, whatever while singing). Play the Bard you're given.

 

[Desiderius]

This is where I started if you need ideas. They can be improved upon as you learn, which is fun:

https://af.gog.com/forum/pathfinder_kingmaker/companion_builds/post1?as=1649904300

https://af.gog.com/forum/pathfinder_kingmaker/roahins_main_character_builds/page1?as=1649904300

Yosh's guide is harder to improve upon so if you're into the tactics more than the building you can start there.

 

[Cryomancer]

Is there any good character guides for people who aren’t autistic and want to start this game without fucking them selves over late game?

Play what you like to play. I finished the game IN UNFAIR with a PURE ROLE PLAY NECROMANCER build, without multiclassing and using arguably the worst wizard subclass. Here is my run >> https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...-thassilonian-necromancer-with-videos.140352/

Here is a video of chapter 3 fights.



Even if you are really bad, you can finish in normal with any "vanilla" build. Unless you try to run something atrocious like a low INT wiz.

 

[Haplo]

I started playing this on the hardest difficulty not being at all familiar with Pathfinder, nor having any idea what I'm doing, and fuck, it's insanely hard. I was already having to use every single spell and special ability just to survive the tutorial. It's possible my build is completely fucked (playing as a Ranger with longbow specialty), but no one in my party can hit jack shit, so battles are a nightmare of RNG (although, I have learned that using the special abilities that increase attack even just slightly can make a massive difference).

I also fucking hate (in fact, loathe), RTWP, which is utter shit because you really have no idea when the masked turns begin or end, and with a game this RNG focused, you kind of need to know that to be successful. I haven't tried turn based mode yet.

Anyhow, I made it to the first village after 2 hours of trial and error. I am very stubborn, love challenges, and always play everything on the hardest difficulty, but ya'll need to let me know if a vanilla Ranger is fine for the hardest difficulty, or if I should restart. My stats are: STR 8, DEX 20, CON 10, INT 12, WIS 16, CHA 8. I took humans for my enemy type perk and the Long Bow specialty perk.

Don't play Unfair if you're not proficient with the systems. In fact, don't play Unfair untill you know the areas, what enemies to expect and what are their weaknesses. Plus know all possible party synergies, party-wide buffing and debuffing options and stacking rules. In short, don't start with Unfair. It really is... Unfair.
You want a big challenge while not being proficient with the systems? You can try Hard. But it will be HARD. DO NOT START ON UNFAIR.

One problem I can see with your ranged build is that you've dumped Strenght. Ranged weapons do use Dexterity to hit stuff - but Composite Bows still use Strenght to increase the damage per shot (non-composite bows don't scale their damage from any stat). So you should have at least about 14 Str at start.
And no, I don't recommend ranged builds for high difficulty settings. They do have the advantage of getting full attacks on enemies most of the time - because they don't need to move to engage the enemies. But their accuracy is sub-par. Most importantly they don't benefit from Flanking. And that is +2 Attack Bonus at base, +4 Attack with Outflank (which all martials should get ASAP) and +6 AB with Outflank and Freebooter's Bond (unlimited use buff from Freebooter Ranger). A 6 point AB gap is really challenging to close. Even moreso on highest difficulty settings, where enemy Armor Class is bloated.

 

[Yosharian]

I started playing this on the hardest difficulty not being at all familiar with Pathfinder, nor having any idea what I'm doing, and fuck, it's insanely hard. I was already having to use every single spell and special ability just to survive the tutorial. It's possible my build is completely fucked (playing as a Ranger with longbow specialty), but no one in my party can hit jack shit, so battles are a nightmare of RNG (although, I have learned that using the special abilities that increase attack even just slightly can make a massive difference).

I also fucking hate (in fact, loathe), RTWP, which is utter shit because you really have no idea when the masked turns begin or end, and with a game this RNG focused, you kind of need to know that to be successful. I haven't tried turn based mode yet.

Anyhow, I made it to the first village after 2 hours of trial and error. I am very stubborn, love challenges, and always play everything on the hardest difficulty, but ya'll need to let me know if a vanilla Ranger is fine for the hardest difficulty, or if I should restart. My stats are: STR 8, DEX 20, CON 10, INT 12, WIS 16, CHA 8. I took humans for my enemy type perk and the Long Bow specialty perk.

You should play with the mods in my recommended list

 

[Yosharian]

I started playing this on the hardest difficulty not being at all familiar with Pathfinder, nor having any idea what I'm doing, and fuck, it's insanely hard. I was already having to use every single spell and special ability just to survive the tutorial. It's possible my build is completely fucked (playing as a Ranger with longbow specialty), but no one in my party can hit jack shit, so battles are a nightmare of RNG (although, I have learned that using the special abilities that increase attack even just slightly can make a massive difference).

I also fucking hate (in fact, loathe), RTWP, which is utter shit because you really have no idea when the masked turns begin or end, and with a game this RNG focused, you kind of need to know that to be successful. I haven't tried turn based mode yet.

Anyhow, I made it to the first village after 2 hours of trial and error. I am very stubborn, love challenges, and always play everything on the hardest difficulty, but ya'll need to let me know if a vanilla Ranger is fine for the hardest difficulty, or if I should restart. My stats are: STR 8, DEX 20, CON 10, INT 12, WIS 16, CHA 8. I took humans for my enemy type perk and the Long Bow specialty perk.

Don't play Unfair if you're not proficient with the systems. In fact, don't play Unfair untill you know the areas, what enemies to expect and what are their weaknesses. Plus know all possible party synergies, party-wide buffing and debuffing options and stacking rules. In short, don't start with Unfair. It really is... Unfair.
You want a big challenge while not being proficient with the systems? You can try Hard. But it will be HARD. DO NOT START ON UNFAIR.

One problem I can see with your ranged build is that you've dumped Strenght. Ranged weapons do use Dexterity to hit stuff - but Composite Bows still use Strenght to increase the damage per shot (non-composite bows don't scale their damage from any stat). So you should have at least about 14 Str at start.
And no, I don't recommend ranged builds for high difficulty settings. They do have the advantage of getting full attacks on enemies most of the time - because they don't need to move to engage the enemies. But their accuracy is sub-par. Most importantly they don't benefit from Flanking. And that is +2 Attack Bonus at base, +4 Attack with Outflank (which all martials should get ASAP) and +6 AB with Outflank and Freebooter's Bond (unlimited use buff from Freebooter Ranger). A 6 point AB gap is really challenging to close. Even moreso on highest difficulty settings, where enemy Armor Class is bloated.

Counter point: there are numerous items available fairly early on that dramatically boost ranged AB, and a full sneak attack archer with Mirror Bow is one of the most powerful damage dealing archetypes in the game

 

[Haplo]

What items? Bracers of Archery? The bonus isn't that great and won't stack with a Bard's Inspire Courage (you are using a Bard, aren't you?).

I think there was maybe one nice item in the DLC, but I never got that one.

 

[Yosharian]

There's a set of gloves that grants +4 ranged AB available very early

 

[Haplo]

There's a set of gloves that grants +4 ranged AB available very early

Oh, I see.
In an entirely optional DLC megadungeon.
If you plan to go for it, I guess ranged looks more attractive.


For me the base game has enough content to never bother.

 

[Yosharian]

It's piss-easy to get, and the Tiefling companion is super useful for a variety of reasons.

There are also a bunch of helms that grant bonuses

 

[Yosharian]

Armor: Shepherd's Armor (+2 Untyped to AB/dmg on bow attacks)

Gloves: Death From Afar (+4 untyped bonus to ranged weapon attack rolls)

Head: Sharp Eye (+6 Competence to Perception checks, +2 Untyped to ranged attacks)

Wrist: Bracers of the Ruby Phoenix Champion (+1 untyped bonus to Longbows). [this one is endgame]

 

[Yosharian]

My Nok-Nok build absolutely destroys encounters even before he gets Mirror Bow but after he gets that? Pffft

 

[Haplo]

Don't know why you'd mention the Tiefling companion. That was the 1st DLC, which I have and its fairly integrated into the story (in fact, I often use the Tiefling race).

 

[Yosharian]

Also if we are talking about content, the megadungeon is way more interesting than a lot of the base game's content and you can do it at any time without being rushed

 

[Yosharian]

Don't know why you'd mention the Tiefling companion. That was the 1st DLC, which I have and its fairly integrated into the story (in fact, I often use the Tiefling race).

Oh my bad I thought they were the same dlc

 

[Haplo]

Okay, that's quite a collection. Don't think I had most of these items, except for the Shepherd's Armor (which is quite late IF you don't metagame).
Guess they do make archery more attractive.

 

[Yosharian]

Okay, that's quite a collection. Don't think I had most of these items, except for the Shepherd's Armor (which is quite late IF you don't metagame).
Guess they do make archery more attractive.

Using Dimension Door and Invisibility in the way they are intended to be used isn't metagaming.

 

[Haplo]

Okay, that's quite a collection. Don't think I had most of these items, except for the Shepherd's Armor (which is quite late IF you don't metagame).
Guess they do make archery more attractive.

Using Dimension Door and Invisibility in the way they are intended to be used isn't metagaming.

Invisibility? Man up, Yosh

 

[Cryomancer]

Guys, any guide on how to install mods in linux? I wanna re play with races unleashed + call of the wild. I followed it some time ago but forgot.