KickStarter Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pre-DLC Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[ArchAngel]

And those don't attack only one person

They mostly do, like all enemies. Sometimes they switch to someone else, I'm not sure if it's just a periodic test for someone with lower AC in range or just a reaction to damage, but enemies still do that rarely, and if you give everyone else reach or missile weapons, they just won't.

Spoiler

I am pretty sure that the Lightning spam they do does not only hit one person

Who cares, later on you can cast AoE Lightning resists. Pure skill .

You know their gimmick so it's solved.

This is an odd falacy--just because an encounter is beatable does not mean it's balanced or well-made.

First off, normal PnP wisps don't have at-will lightning bolts, so it's already an overly tough custom monster with no commensurate CR increase.

Second, even if you cast resist + protection from energy, the groups of wisps on candlemere can blow through that in 0-2 fights easily. So you have to recast, sometimes in the same fight, and then rest spam.

All for what? The wisps are beatable, that's not the problem. You just need this specific hard counter. But it does make these battles out of reach for parties without that spell, or players who aren't clever enough to know the spell list ahead of time (it's not like there is a manual). If you were a total noob, no knowledge of 3.x D&D, and you didn't already have protection from energy, how would you even know how to find it? These encounters would be ultra-frustrating to you.

I don't see the point of making normal encounters like this out of reach for an un-optimized party. Experienced players can use protection spells and have an easier time, but players who lack them shouldn't be totally out of luck. As it is, you have to use the hard counter and rest spam. That's just emblematic of Pathfinder's overall design. Even if you are playing it "right," it's not in a very fun way.

Of course, this gives elitist gamers the opportunity to declare how they are Better At Videogames Than You, but for a developer, everyone's money is equal.

You sound like a person that would rather be playing Pillars of Eternity.. don't let us stop you from going there. Door is that way ---->

 

[Parabalus]

What are the best initial options for your kingdom? Mostly unsure what you can do concurrently - everything which doesn't require yourself?

And those don't attack only one person

They mostly do, like all enemies. Sometimes they switch to someone else, I'm not sure if it's just a periodic test for someone with lower AC in range or just a reaction to damage, but enemies still do that rarely, and if you give everyone else reach or missile weapons, they just won't.

Spoiler

I am pretty sure that the Lightning spam they do does not only hit one person

Who cares, later on you can cast AoE Lightning resists. Pure skill .

You know their gimmick so it's solved.

This is an odd falacy--just because an encounter is beatable does not mean it's balanced or well-made.

First off, normal PnP wisps don't have at-will lightning bolts, so it's already an overly tough custom monster with no commensurate CR increase.

Second, even if you cast resist + protection from energy, the groups of wisps on candlemere can blow through that in 0-2 fights easily. So you have to recast, sometimes in the same fight, and then rest spam.

All for what? The wisps are beatable, that's not the problem. You just need this specific hard counter. But it does make these battles out of reach for parties without that spell, or players who aren't clever enough to know the spell list ahead of time (it's not like there is a manual). If you were a total noob, no knowledge of 3.x D&D, and you didn't already have protection from energy, how would you even know how to find it? These encounters would be ultra-frustrating to you.

I don't see the point of making normal encounters like this out of reach for an un-optimized party. Experienced players can use protection spells and have an easier time, but players who lack them shouldn't be totally out of luck. As it is, you have to use the hard counter and rest spam. That's just emblematic of Pathfinder's overall design. Even if you are playing it "right," it's not in a very fun way.

Of course, this gives elitist gamers the opportunity to declare how they are Better At Videogames Than You, but for a developer, everyone's money is equal.

You sound like a person that would be rather playing Pillars of Eternity.. don't let us stop you from going there. Door is that way ---->

Do you think a 41 AC mob in a lvl 3 area is a good thing?

The Resist lightning part is ok, but why also inflate it's AC to heavens.

 

[Reinhardt]

Do you think a 41 AC mob in a lvl 3 area is a good thing?

Yes. To encounter it you must do really stupid thing. And stupidity should be punishable.

 

[Luckmann]

Well, I've gotten a third party to the stupid kobold tree, this time without bloated enemy stats (apparently 'slightly stronger' means +2 BAB and +2 AC, which is fucking insane) and a stupid gimmicky intimidation build on my main character which I'm not sure is working or not. Also turned off shared party xp since that was apparently fucking my xp gains massively. Also didn't get a 5th party member at the ruins this time, no idea why. Just a bunch of level 6 mercs that, naturally, give xp like they're level 1.

I know it's largely in part due to having just replayed the same shit 3 times in a row, but I'm already feeling burnt out on this shitty combat. I never feel like anything I do has any importance. The difference between flanking enemies or using trivial buffs like bless doesn't feel impactful at all, and it requires micro managing everyone's positions to even do that. It seems to come down to just rolling as many d20 as you can get your hands on and hoping it mostly sticks. Since my latest character is also gimped by a bug AFAICT (no flurry of blows even when stripped naked) I might just reroll yet again and do another retarded horde of smilodons party (this time without the gimps that can't cast spells) so I can safely just sleep through all the mandatory combat and just spam some positive energy channeling between fights to heal all the critters. Trying to rely on 2-3 fighters to tank stuff seems to be just begging for some nat 20's to knock them down and team wipe you.

Are there decent NPCs showing up fairly soon? So far the only halfway competent one is the bard, which is pretty fucking sad. The priest has one of the shittiest domains and gods in the game (and no charisma to support energy channeling), the barbarian is specialized in missing and having 13 AC, and the fighter... well at least she's got AC, albeit basically nothing else going for her.

Other gripes include not knowing a chest is locked until you've whiffed your lockpicking checks without buffing first, the painful loading and travelling times, and the random wilderness locations varying between a bunch of free xp and loot behind some trivial skill checks, and random encounters with weretigers and trolls meant for level 10 parties at least.

This is such a bundle of fucking stupid I don't even know where to start.

 

[Jenkem]

I made new character and the voice previews are all fucked.. and on normal it seemed easier than before (the oleg trading fight especially) did they nerf the game??

 

[ArchAngel]

What are the best initial options for your kingdom? Mostly unsure what you can do concurrently - everything which doesn't require yourself?

And those don't attack only one person

They mostly do, like all enemies. Sometimes they switch to someone else, I'm not sure if it's just a periodic test for someone with lower AC in range or just a reaction to damage, but enemies still do that rarely, and if you give everyone else reach or missile weapons, they just won't.

Spoiler

I am pretty sure that the Lightning spam they do does not only hit one person

Who cares, later on you can cast AoE Lightning resists. Pure skill .

You know their gimmick so it's solved.

This is an odd falacy--just because an encounter is beatable does not mean it's balanced or well-made.

First off, normal PnP wisps don't have at-will lightning bolts, so it's already an overly tough custom monster with no commensurate CR increase.

Second, even if you cast resist + protection from energy, the groups of wisps on candlemere can blow through that in 0-2 fights easily. So you have to recast, sometimes in the same fight, and then rest spam.

All for what? The wisps are beatable, that's not the problem. You just need this specific hard counter. But it does make these battles out of reach for parties without that spell, or players who aren't clever enough to know the spell list ahead of time (it's not like there is a manual). If you were a total noob, no knowledge of 3.x D&D, and you didn't already have protection from energy, how would you even know how to find it? These encounters would be ultra-frustrating to you.

I don't see the point of making normal encounters like this out of reach for an un-optimized party. Experienced players can use protection spells and have an easier time, but players who lack them shouldn't be totally out of luck. As it is, you have to use the hard counter and rest spam. That's just emblematic of Pathfinder's overall design. Even if you are playing it "right," it's not in a very fun way.

Of course, this gives elitist gamers the opportunity to declare how they are Better At Videogames Than You, but for a developer, everyone's money is equal.

You sound like a person that would be rather playing Pillars of Eternity.. don't let us stop you from going there. Door is that way ---->

Do you think a 41 AC mob in a lvl 3 area is a good thing?

The Resist lightning part is ok, but why also inflate it's AC to heavens.

Do you think it is smart to ask that question here?
Maybe you hear of "RPG Codex >doesn't scale to your level" words?

 

[Jarpie]

"Oh boohoo, I have to pre-plan against enemies and use spells", there's a merchant in the city who sells protection against electricity scrolls, he has like 999 in his stock. People used to complain in here how PoE is boring because it doesn't have hard-counters and buffs etc are inconsequential, well, we have a game now which has all those things, and you bitch and whine? Git gud, losers or go back to play Pillows of Eternity.

 

[Thonius]

Devs are definitely not SJW there is racism against Elves.

Onion soup is a 4chan meme too btw.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

You sound like a person that would rather be playing Pillars of Eternity.. don't let us stop you from going there. Door is that way ---->

I didn't like either Pillars game very much, FYI. But bad encounter design is bad encounter design; as an avid tabletop DM for years I'm appalled at the level of cheapness this game employs.

Nevertheless, I would very much like to continue playing Pathfinder, but since I lost the kingdom due to an unwinnable configuration of auto-fail events, and auto-kingdom and invincible kingdom did not solve it, I regretfully cannot. Though supposedly that bug has been fixed since I last uninstalled, I'm not interested in walking through yet more bugs, nor am I willing to restart yet another doomed playthrough.

 

[Incendax]

They mostly do, like all enemies. Sometimes they switch to someone else, I'm not sure if it's just a periodic test for someone with lower AC in range or just a reaction to damage, but enemies still do that rarely, and if you give everyone else reach or missile weapons, they just won't.

Yeah. Enemies will switch from your tanks after a couple of misses and go for someone else. I started using two tanks for exactly that reason, and the Enemy would switch back and forth between the tanks (and I would micro fighting defensively).

So, i’m Inclined to think it is just a “Missing? Attack someone else” mechanic instead of targeting lowest AC.

 

[vazha]

I had to give up on Nok-Nok because it seems that it was the AI's Chosen One. He died each fight so ... fuck it.

how are you playing him? As a tank? Replacing Amiri with Nok-Nok has made my life so much easier on insane. The guy has not died even once so far and dishes out insane amount of damage. And he'll only get better as he becomes skilled in his new hobby - vivisection.

 

[vazha]

Bros, a little help please. How the hell do you beat Hargulka? Party is at level 6, melee guys have all around 60 HP and between 25 and 30 AC before buffs, I buff them to the eyes, bless, heroism, divine favor, prayer, haste, shields, blur, luck and so on, doesn't matter. He kills one guy about every 4-5 seconds (basically, he hits them twice, and he almost never misses), he saves against everything - and no, I'm not kidding, only debuff that ever worked was Hold Person for exactly one round after that he continuously saved, at neither Linzi or Octavia manage to dispel his haste.

Given the way the fight goes, I'm not sure 1 or 2 more level ups would do much good.

His will saves are abysmal, lower it further and then spam hold person/laughter on him and then use melee touch spells for maximum ownage. Also, summons. don't engage him straightaway, let him deal with summons as you try to lower his will saves to a non-missable lvl

 

[toro]

I had to give up on Nok-Nok because it seems that it was the AI's Chosen One. He died each fight so ... fuck it.

how are you playing him? As a tank? Replacing Amiri with Nok-Nok has made my life so much easier on insane. The guy has not died even once so far and dishes out insane amount of damage. And he'll only get better as he becomes skilled in his new hobby - vivisection.

He is behind the tanks and he was good until I've reached the Bloom dungeon but then he started getting raped by the spiders.

Spoiler

There are at least 2 ambushes in the Bloom dungeon and Nok-Nok is going down fast.

Also the AI has an hard on for him.

 

[ArchAngel]

Bros, a little help please. How the hell do you beat Hargulka? Party is at level 6, melee guys have all around 60 HP and between 25 and 30 AC before buffs, I buff them to the eyes, bless, heroism, divine favor, prayer, haste, shields, blur, luck and so on, doesn't matter. He kills one guy about every 4-5 seconds (basically, he hits them twice, and he almost never misses), he saves against everything - and no, I'm not kidding, only debuff that ever worked was Hold Person for exactly one round after that he continuously saved, at neither Linzi or Octavia manage to dispel his haste.

Given the way the fight goes, I'm not sure 1 or 2 more level ups would do much good.

Displacement works wonders. Buff the hell out of one melee including displacement and have him only fight that one person. If you got more melee Enlarge Person them or give them reach weapons so he does not switch to them. Will save spells will work well vs him. You can also try to blind him with Glitterdust. Web should also work well as well as Slow (slow will counter his Haste)

 

[vazha]

I had to give up on Nok-Nok because it seems that it was the AI's Chosen One. He died each fight so ... fuck it.

how are you playing him? As a tank? Replacing Amiri with Nok-Nok has made my life so much easier on insane. The guy has not died even once so far and dishes out insane amount of damage. And he'll only get better as he becomes skilled in his new hobby - vivisection.

He is behind the tanks and he was good until I've reached the Bloom dungeon but then he started getting raped by the spiders.

Spoiler

There are at least 2 ambushes in the Bloom dungeon and Nok-Nok is going down fast.

But how? He is super agile, has great mobility and with haste can run away from most things (even on webbed surface) in a second's time. Also, what's his ac? what's the armor you've given to him? Assassin armor I suppose? his ac should be comfortably in 37-40 area.

 

[ArchAngel]

I had to give up on Nok-Nok because it seems that it was the AI's Chosen One. He died each fight so ... fuck it.

how are you playing him? As a tank? Replacing Amiri with Nok-Nok has made my life so much easier on insane. The guy has not died even once so far and dishes out insane amount of damage. And he'll only get better as he becomes skilled in his new hobby - vivisection.

He is behind the tanks and he was good until I've reached the Bloom dungeon but then he started getting raped by the spiders.

Spoiler

There are at least 2 ambushes in the Bloom dungeon and Nok-Nok is going down fast.

Nok Nok has godlike Mobility. Turn on Acrobatics and move him a bit back behind the tank so enemies lose aggro and then back in to flank with someone.

 

[vazha]

His will saves are abysmal, lower it further and then spam hold person/laughter on him and then use melee touch spells for maximum ownage.

Admittedly, I haven't tried lowering his will save seeing how he appears to have infinite+ save against will since nothing that saves against will actually works on him, especially hold person.

Strange, that. What lvl are you? What's your best mages spell penetration? (please tell me you've taken both spell penetration feats on your casters)

 

[ArchAngel]

I had to give up on Nok-Nok because it seems that it was the AI's Chosen One. He died each fight so ... fuck it.

how are you playing him? As a tank? Replacing Amiri with Nok-Nok has made my life so much easier on insane. The guy has not died even once so far and dishes out insane amount of damage. And he'll only get better as he becomes skilled in his new hobby - vivisection.

He is behind the tanks and he was good until I've reached the Bloom dungeon but then he started getting raped by the spiders.

Spoiler

There are at least 2 ambushes in the Bloom dungeon and Nok-Nok is going down fast.

But how? He is super agile, has great mobility and with haste can run away from most things (even on webbed surface) in a second's time. Also, what's his ac? what's the armor you've given to him? Assassin armor I suppose? his ac should be comfortably in 37-40 area.

In my run of the Bloom area he had a +5 bracers of armor. Best combination with his +9 Dex modifier.

 

[toro]

I had to give up on Nok-Nok because it seems that it was the AI's Chosen One. He died each fight so ... fuck it.

how are you playing him? As a tank? Replacing Amiri with Nok-Nok has made my life so much easier on insane. The guy has not died even once so far and dishes out insane amount of damage. And he'll only get better as he becomes skilled in his new hobby - vivisection.

He is behind the tanks and he was good until I've reached the Bloom dungeon but then he started getting raped by the spiders.

Spoiler

There are at least 2 ambushes in the Bloom dungeon and Nok-Nok is going down fast.

But how? He is super agile, has great mobility and with haste can run away from most things (even on webbed surface) in a second's time. Also, what's his ac? what's the armor you've given to him? Assassin armor I suppose? his ac should be comfortably in 37-40 area.

I have to check but I don't think he has AC more than 30. I did not find the Assassin armor. I think that comes later.

 

[ArchAngel]

His will saves are abysmal, lower it further and then spam hold person/laughter on him and then use melee touch spells for maximum ownage.

Admittedly, I haven't tried lowering his will save seeing how he appears to have infinite+ save against will since nothing that saves against will actually works on him, especially hold person.

Strange, that. What lvl are you? What's your best mages spell penetration? (please tell me you've taken both spell penetration feats on your casters)

Wtf, you don't take spell penetration at such low levels. Harulka does not have Spell resistance...

 

[ArchAngel]

Displacement works wonders. Buff the hell out of one melee including displacement and have him only fight that one person. If you got more melee Enlarge Person them or give them reach weapons so he does not switch to them. Will save spells will work well vs him. You can also try to blind him. Web should also work well as well as Slow (slow will counter his Haste)

Will try Displacement and Slow then because, otherwise, web doesn't work, blind doesn't work, hold person doesn't work, spray doesn't work, he literally Will saves against everything I throw at him and I tried multiple times. I have Enlarge Person on my paladin, guy is an absolute beast with it, in this fight he dies in 2 -3 attacks.

They all work, enemies just get really high rolls in this game. I think the RNG code they use is busted. I will probably report it as bug at some point when they are done with patching high priority bugs like quests not working. I once tried a check to disarm a trap, needed to get like 8, and could not 5 times in a row. But I follow my combat rolls all the time, I often roll under 10, enemies get over 10 very often, especially with save rolls.

EDIT: In my game I had Jaethal tank him, buffed her with everything and had Harrim heal her. But in my game I was evil and got him to kill Tartuk first :D
You probably want someone to kill Tartuk while you play with Harulka.

 

[vazha]

I had to give up on Nok-Nok because it seems that it was the AI's Chosen One. He died each fight so ... fuck it.

how are you playing him? As a tank? Replacing Amiri with Nok-Nok has made my life so much easier on insane. The guy has not died even once so far and dishes out insane amount of damage. And he'll only get better as he becomes skilled in his new hobby - vivisection.

He is behind the tanks and he was good until I've reached the Bloom dungeon but then he started getting raped by the spiders.

Spoiler

There are at least 2 ambushes in the Bloom dungeon and Nok-Nok is going down fast.

But how? He is super agile, has great mobility and with haste can run away from most things (even on webbed surface) in a second's time. Also, what's his ac? what's the armor you've given to him? Assassin armor I suppose? his ac should be comfortably in 37-40 area.

In my run of the Bloom area he had a +5 bracers of armor. Best combination with his +9 Dex modifier.

assassin armor is 8 +5 allowable dex. If you take light armor focus it edges bracers + naked nok-nok (perish the thought) by one point. On the other hand you could mutagen + robe him and... god, he'd be practically invulnerable then. And our friend toro here keeps telling us Nokkie dies every fight. Just hooow.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Bros, a little help please. How the hell do you beat Hargulka? Party is at level 6, melee guys have all around 60 HP and between 25 and 30 AC before buffs, I buff them to the eyes, bless, heroism, divine favor, prayer, haste, shields, blur, luck and so on, doesn't matter. He kills one guy about every 4-5 seconds (basically, he hits them twice, and he almost never misses), he saves against everything - and no, I'm not kidding, only debuff that ever worked was Hold Person for exactly one round after that he continuously saved, at neither Linzi or Octavia manage to dispel his haste.

Given the way the fight goes, I'm not sure 1 or 2 more level ups would do much good.

His will saves are abysmal, lower it further and then spam hold person/laughter on him and then use melee touch spells for maximum ownage. Also, summons. don't engage him straightaway, let him deal with summons as you try to lower his will saves to a non-missable lvl

On normal his will save is +7, which is not "abysmal," and he is immune to paralysis due to his weapon, so hold person does nothing. You need multiple casters casting multiple debuffs each round to ensure something sticks. Using summons is a good way to absorb his damage while you wait for the RNG to go your way (or practice your F5-F8-jutsu)

There are some effective debuffs: glitterdust, hideous laughter, and slow; combine with mass summons and he's toast.

 

[vazha]

His will saves are abysmal, lower it further and then spam hold person/laughter on him and then use melee touch spells for maximum ownage.

Admittedly, I haven't tried lowering his will save seeing how he appears to have infinite+ save against will since nothing that saves against will actually works on him, especially hold person.

Strange, that. What lvl are you? What's your best mages spell penetration? (please tell me you've taken both spell penetration feats on your casters)

Wtf, you don't take spell penetration at such low levels. Harulka does not have Spell resistance...

Spell penetration is not just overcoming spell resistance, it also raises your spells effective difficulty class, no? For example my fey enchantment focused sorceress with 2 spell penetrations literally kept hargulka floored and laughing from the get-go

 

[ArchAngel]

I had to give up on Nok-Nok because it seems that it was the AI's Chosen One. He died each fight so ... fuck it.

how are you playing him? As a tank? Replacing Amiri with Nok-Nok has made my life so much easier on insane. The guy has not died even once so far and dishes out insane amount of damage. And he'll only get better as he becomes skilled in his new hobby - vivisection.

He is behind the tanks and he was good until I've reached the Bloom dungeon but then he started getting raped by the spiders.

Spoiler

There are at least 2 ambushes in the Bloom dungeon and Nok-Nok is going down fast.

But how? He is super agile, has great mobility and with haste can run away from most things (even on webbed surface) in a second's time. Also, what's his ac? what's the armor you've given to him? Assassin armor I suppose? his ac should be comfortably in 37-40 area.

In my run of the Bloom area he had a +5 bracers of armor. Best combination with his +9 Dex modifier.

assassin armor is 8 +5 allowable dex. If you take light armor focus it edges bracers + naked nok-nok (perish the thought) by one point. On the other hand you could mutagen + robe him and... god, he'd be practically invulnerable then. And our friend toro here keeps telling us Nokkie dies every fight. Just hooow.

ok, that armor must be something high level. Season of Bloom is Act 3, I doubt that armor is available there.