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

[Denim Destroyer]

Quick time to email Owlcat telling them to add aging spells to Wrath!

 

[Reever]

 

[Desiderius]

Pretty impressive for a troll.

 

[ga♥]

That happened twice in my last playthrough as well, expet two my chars suddendly found themselves in odd places, not enemies.

 

[Mangoose]

People are bad, PK "normal codex" difficulty is Hard (second highest).

According to (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1527643988) the algorithm for difficulty scaling is kinda FUBAR. It apparently double-dips so that stat adjustments scale exponentially instead of linearly.

And that Enemy Stat Adjustment is just weird.

TLDR: Core Rules Set Enemy Difficulty to "weak" and Enemy Stat Adjustments to "normal" for mostly-accurate Pathfinder experience, in terms of encounter balance.

TLDR: Enemy Stat Adjustment only seems to influence Regeneration and Immunity bypass (no or reduced damage from non-magical weapons), and from what I can find in the code, only when choosing "somewhat easier" (half regen) or "much easier" (no regen) options. Any other option, such as "much tougher enemies" doesn't appear to actually be used anywhere I've found in the code. Comically enough, this even means choosing the "moderately easier" option is exactly the same as "much tougher" when it comes to this (which is all I can see it actually getting called for).

TLDR: Enemy Difficulty changes the modifier scores (but not the base values) of the main attributes, skills, AC, Attacks, and Saves, by -2, +0, +2, +4, for weak, normal, strengthened, insane options accordingly. I'll go into why below, but you might notice attacks and AC get double-dipped due to the way the math is handled. I'm not sure if that's intentional or not, but it results in a rather steep increase in certain key stat values.

Or non-TDLR:

Enemy Stat Adjustment

This one is pretty clear from what I've seen. Here's the relevant pseudocode:

If "Enemy Stat Adjustment" is set to "Much Easier" then Set RegenerationRate to 0
If "Enemy Stat Adjustment" is set to "Somewhat Easier" then Set RegenerationRate to 1/2

Basically, there are checks to see if "Decline" or ExtraDecline" are set (internal terms for "somewhat easier" and "much easier"), then does a full, half, or no regeneration depending on the configuration. It checks it every round, which means you can change the setting and it will be reflected on the next round of combat.

There is a similar check for Damage Immunity which either removes it entirely or converts it to resistance (half damage).

I think the main takeaway here is that the difficulty label of "Enemy Stat Adjustment" isn't very clear -- and possibly a translation issue more than anything. There's also the likely oversight in not reducing the regen and immunity values for the "moderately easier" option.

Enemy Difficulty

Here's partial code that makes the magic happen:

{
EnemyDifficulty enemyDifficulty = Game.Instance.Player.Difficulty.EnemyDifficulty;
int num = (int)(enemyDifficulty - 1);
BlueprintDifficultyList.StatsAdjustmentPreset adjustmentPreset =
BlueprintRoot.Instance.DifficultyList.GetAdjustmentPreset(Game.Instance.Player.Difficulty.StatsAdjustmentsType);
int value = BasicStatBonus * (adjustmentPreset.BasicStatBonusMultiplier + num);
int value2 = DerivativeStatBonus * (adjustmentPreset.DerivativeStatBonusMultiplier + num);
//the BasicStatBonusMultiplier and DerivativeStatBonusMultiplier seem to default to 1.
It's possible that certain monsters or bosses have that stat set higher, which would effectively
act the same as increasing the Enemy Difficulty setting another notch without an upper-limit.

m_StrengthModifier = base.Owner.Stats.Strength.AddModifier(value, this, ModifierDescriptor.Difficulty);
//does the same for the other 5 stats

m_SkillPerceptionModifier = base.Owner.Stats.SkillPerception.AddModifier(value2, this, ModifierDescriptor.Difficulty);
//does the same for AC, attack modifier, and saves.
}

It looks more complicated that it is, but gist is the math works out so that the weak, normal, strengthened, and insane options grant a -2, 0, +2, +4 bonus to the modifiers of various stats. The important distinction to make here is that the bonus is added to the modifier and not the base score. So if a Troll has a Strength of 26 (+8), bumping the difficulty up one notch would turn it into a 26 (+10). Notice that the actual Strength score doesn't increase; just the modifier.

Anyway, it does that for the six core stats (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha), and then does it again for perception, AC, attack, and saves. The problem here is that the "derivative" stats are double-dipping when the difficulty changes. So a Normal Troll has +8 Strength mod, but a Strengthened Troll will have a +10 and a +2 attack modifier. So end result is a Strengthened Troll effectively has 8 higher strength than normal. If you bump it up to an Insane Troll, it gets a +12 Strength mod and a +4 attack modifier, effectively granting the troll 16 Strength higher than normal.

The exact same thing is happening with AC, because it gets both a Dexterity mod boost and a flat AC boost. Same with saving throws and perception.

You can compare the more generic enemies with the bestiary at d20pfsrd. For me, Normal-Normal tends to get correlating stats. Not sure why the author found "Weak" to be match more. Maybe because of the superfluous feats he mentioned. Either way, it avoids the scaling mechanism.

I think this is linked in that definitive mods list page.

 

[Shadenuat]

eh? double dip is ancient and was fixed after release.

 

[Mangoose]

And in fact the first half of the game is not considered to be the buggy one, you're in for a ride

the game really isn't that buggy anymore

Turn based stil dont work properly.Enemies or allies are still doing nothing and not ending their turns.Space does not do shit.Esc or T helps but thats just retarded.Unistalled it yesterday when fighting barbarians with jamandi aldori.

I finished the entire game on turn-based, and while TB does hang once in a while, it's really not that bad.

Wait. How is Space okay but T retarded? lol. I mean, just double tap T. You're paused when switching to real time so nothing changes.

 

[Desiderius]

The difficulty sliders have never made any sense. Bottom line is if you play the game like you’re playing BG or PoE Hard ends up being roughly equivalent, but only if you start on Normal, the Challenging at 3-5 and Hard at 7-10 or thereabouts.

PnP values have exactly nothing to do with anything.

Once you have a feel for the game Unfair without damage doubling ends up being good for the last half of the game or with doubling tinman if you want some adrenaline.

 

[Mangoose]

eh? double dip is ancient and was fixed after release.

I dunno, still seems to scale expontentially. Either way, I like to play it safe and stick with the tabletop bestiary lol.

 

[Shadenuat]

But its weak.

 

[Grunker]

PoE's (the original's) Path of the Damned is way, waaaaaaaaay harder than anything the hardest P:K difficulty can offer for most of the game. Only during the first few levels are they about equal. That of course goes double if you're full-on munchkin-optimizing builds and abusing stuff, but if you're doing that it's kind of your own fault that the difficulty of a game like P:K suffers

 

[Xamenos]

Double dip was never fixed because it's a core issue with how they implemented the difficulty sliders. One gives a bonus to monster stats, indirectly affecting the important things like BAB and AC, and the other gives a bonus to the important things like BAB and AC directly. It cannot be fixed unless they scrap one of the sliders.

 

[Shadenuat]

But enemiz on release had like +20 extra statz as they are now. The screenshots of that are mythological.
still remember fighting 60 or 80 ac spider or something in CH 3. and 100 ac pitax boyz (albeit that bug had different reasons afaik)
that is what was the infamous "double dip"

 

[Desiderius]

But enemiz on release had like +20 extra statz as they are now. The screenshots of that are mythological.
still remember fighting 60 or 80 ac spider or something in CH 3.
that is what was the infamous "double dip"

Ah, that explains a lot since I held off four months to buy the game. I apologize for calling all of you degenerate phaggots retards.

 

[Desiderius]

If you would like to play this mythical difficulty now you can with Wrath Unfair.

 

[Mangoose]

But its weak.

It's weak if you munchkin and min-max your characters, same thing with tabletop. Me? I prefer to make stupid experimental builds so I try not to turn any other knobs.

 

[Desiderius]

Double dip was never fixed because it's a core issue with how they implemented the difficulty sliders. One gives a bonus to monster stats, indirectly affecting the important things like BAB and AC, and the other gives a bonus to the important things like BAB and AC directly. It cannot be fixed unless they scrap one of the sliders.

I guess. They could just you know have a slider for stats and another for AC, etc..

 

[Grunker]

I prefer to make stupid experimental builds so I try not to turn any other knobs.

That's what I do and it made Unfair feel just fine for the first half of the game, ridicoulously easy from Vordekai onwards, and then fine again for the last couple of levels. In my first, uncompleted playthrough I also used stupid experimental builds but played on Core rules, and it was a roflstomp from level 7 onwards

 

[Shadenuat]

But its weak.

It's weak if you munchkin and min-max your characters, same thing with tabletop. Me? I prefer to make stupid experimental builds so I try not to turn any other knobs.

You don't need to minmax or munchkin in Pathfinder to make any class overpower any normal enemies. Anything you pick is just strong.

If you would like to play this mythical difficulty now you can with Wrath Unfair.

Well in Wrath you ofteen meet those as optional enemies, or enemies that run away, or have help from NPCs. I had to clear whole levels of bugged enemies with silly spells avoiding stat bloatz was funny actually - no matter how more buggied game got, your party is still stronger
although vildevrans with infinite stacking ticking bleeding were really sillyyyyy esp since script to restore your spells did not work yet and thus you were like always stuck at level 0 in final chapter.

But yes, Wrath really raised the bar.

 

[Mangoose]

Double dip was never fixed because it's a core issue with how they implemented the difficulty sliders. One gives a bonus to monster stats, indirectly affecting the important things like BAB and AC, and the other gives a bonus to the important things like BAB and AC directly. It cannot be fixed unless they scrap one of the sliders.

I guess. They could just you know have a slider for stats and another for AC, etc..

This may work https://www.nexusmods.com/pathfinderkingmaker/mods/219

Before this mod when you select different options in the setting “Enemy difficulty”, the enemies in the game get +2AC and Attack Bonus, as well as +4 to all ability scores for each increase in the difficulty level (e.g., from Normal to Strengthened). If you give a monster +2 to AC and Attack Bonus and +4 to all ability scores, in reality, that gives the monsters +4 to hit your party and +4 to avoid your party’s attacks. I think that it is too much, and I always wanted more fine-tuning settings. That’s where I had the idea for this mod. With this mod, you can replace these bonuses. By default, this mod replaces the vanilla values to +1 to AC and Attack Bonus (instead of +2) and +2 to all ability scores (instead of +4). This gives monsters +2 to hit and to avoid attacks for each level of increase in the “Enemy difficulty” setting. However, you can change these values to whatever you like, just open the “Settings.csv” file with Excel or LibreOffice and change the values. However, I should note that I have not tested other values.

To check what each option was originally intended to do by the devs, see: https://steamcommunity.com/app/640820/discussions/0/1730963192537352029/

 

[Mangoose]

But its weak.

It's weak if you munchkin and min-max your characters, same thing with tabletop. Me? I prefer to make stupid experimental builds so I try not to turn any other knobs.

You don't need to minmax or munchkin in Pathfinder to make any class overpower any normal enemies. Anything you pick is just strong.

Do you use charisma as a dump stat?

 

[Shadenuat]

It's not about dump stats. It's that any even standard class is built to generally kick at least some ass, triple so with GIGA equipment and some companions Owlcats filled game with.

 

[Mangoose]

I prefer to make stupid experimental builds so I try not to turn any other knobs.

That's what I do and it made Unfair feel just fine for the first half of the game, ridicoulously easy from Vordekai onwards, and then fine again for the last couple of levels. In my first, uncompleted playthrough I also used stupid experimental builds but played on Core rules, and it was a roflstomp from level 7 onwards

Oh. Well it's more like choosing Challenging and then dropping the two difficulty sliders to normal.

 

[Desiderius]

But its weak.

It's weak if you munchkin and min-max your characters, same thing with tabletop. Me? I prefer to make stupid experimental builds so I try not to turn any other knobs.

You don't need to minmax or munchkin in Pathfinder to make any class overpower any normal enemies. Anything you pick is just strong.

Do you use charisma as a dump stat?

There really aren’t drop stats since the only benefit of dropping is like .5 to a DC or some shit. You can get WIS to Persuasion from Background in Wrath but it’s rarely worth doing. I start most builds by adding two to each stat then going from there.

Their whole design philosophy seems built around fucking the MMO dumb-down in the ass. That’s why it’s so amusing when people cry about munchkins and minmaxxing. Your typical MMO power-gamer is doing more minning than maxxing in these games.

 

[Mangoose]

But its weak.

It's weak if you munchkin and min-max your characters, same thing with tabletop. Me? I prefer to make stupid experimental builds so I try not to turn any other knobs.

You don't need to minmax or munchkin in Pathfinder to make any class overpower any normal enemies. Anything you pick is just strong.

Do you use charisma as a dump stat?

There really aren’t drop stats since the only benefit of dropping is like .5 to a DC or some shit. You can get WIS to Persuasion from Background in Wrath but it’s rarely worth doing. I start most builds by adding two to each stat then going from there.

Er, by drop stat I mean when you put a stat like Charisma at minimum, because Charisma doesn't matter, thus allowing you to put points into something else. Many PNP are okay with it, though many others aren't.