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

[Tacgnol]

When it comes to kingdom mangement no one except Jubilost seems to know what they are doing anyway.

Delgado is a fine diplomat. I know for a fact, he has some unique solutions Linzi doesn't. Eg. the border patrol resolution to impose exorbitant fines, doesn't even show with Linzi.

So no artisan fix, no pitax vendor fix, no sneak attack fix, some weapons being still obsolete... Eh, I ll give this one a pass, thanks Owlcat.

What's the problem with sneak attacks?

Applies to almost everything.

To elaborate, now that I have time: Sneak Attack dice is getting added to practically every damage instance that exists. There don't seem to be any checks to ensure it obeys the once-per-round/once-per-attack limitations of Pathfinder

So, when you pick up a set of gloves that adds 1d6 to your attacks, you get extra Sneak Attack on that damage.

Another example: when you cast a spell that flings several bolts towards the enemy, you get Sneak Attack dice on every projectile, instead of once per spell.

It makes Scorching Ray, Hellfire Ray, etc absurdly overpowered. They're powerful as it is even with one SA blast, but with one per projectile, it gets ridiculous fast.

Hahaha. I thought it's coming from the fact they relaxed the flanking requirements, and effectively by trial and error of builds, it came to that everyone in my current party has a vivisectionist level, because it's a free 2d6 damage with accomplished sneak attacker almost with every hit.

Getting loads of sneak attacks is actually pretty accurate to the rules. You get one per attack, so a creature with two iterative attacks and two natural attacks would get five sneak attacks if they are flanking you.

The part where it's bugged/not following is when you get sneak attack on sources of bonus damage.

 

[Sykar]

Not quite, multiple instances of SA are applied only to full round attacks which allow you a 5-foot action only in addition during the same round which is also the reason why Scorching Ray and Hellfire Ray won't get it since they are standard (volley) attacks similar to Multishot feat which use your highest BAB only on top of hitting simultaneously and not in sequence. Otherwise you get at most one instance of SA if any.

 

[Van-d-all]

When it comes to kingdom mangement no one except Jubilost seems to know what they are doing anyway.

Delgado is a fine diplomat. I know for a fact, he has some unique solutions Linzi doesn't. Eg. the border patrol resolution to impose exorbitant fines, doesn't even show with Linzi.

So no artisan fix, no pitax vendor fix, no sneak attack fix, some weapons being still obsolete... Eh, I ll give this one a pass, thanks Owlcat.

What's the problem with sneak attacks?

Applies to almost everything.

To elaborate, now that I have time: Sneak Attack dice is getting added to practically every damage instance that exists. There don't seem to be any checks to ensure it obeys the once-per-round/once-per-attack limitations of Pathfinder

So, when you pick up a set of gloves that adds 1d6 to your attacks, you get extra Sneak Attack on that damage.

Another example: when you cast a spell that flings several bolts towards the enemy, you get Sneak Attack dice on every projectile, instead of once per spell.

It makes Scorching Ray, Hellfire Ray, etc absurdly overpowered. They're powerful as it is even with one SA blast, but with one per projectile, it gets ridiculous fast.

Hahaha. I thought it's coming from the fact they relaxed the flanking requirements, and effectively by trial and error of builds, it came to that everyone in my current party has a vivisectionist level, because it's a free 2d6 damage with accomplished sneak attacker almost with every hit.

Getting loads of sneak attacks is actually pretty accurate to the rules. You get one per attack, so a creature with two iterative attacks and two natural attacks would get five sneak attacks if they are flanking you.

The part where it's bugged/not following is when you get sneak attack on sources of bonus damage.

Yeah well, but with p&p rules flanking actually requires smart positioning. In the game, I get it by just posting a second line with reach weapons and both lines get sneak attacks. It's somewhat ridiculous, but I don't complain.

 

[bataille]

Oh boy...

Spoiler

 

[Israfael]

AT with 10d6 SA would get 30d6! extra damage on HR compared to Disintegrate

Not that I disagree that sneak attacks are OP, but ATs are actually broken - the improvise feat does not work with fireballs and other aoe spells (maybe I understand it in a wrong fashion, but the thing should buff them even without lv 10 feat), ranged hacking is totally broken (and you can't even remove this faux NPC after using the ability). Also, you have to pass SR which is hard to do for really dangerous enemies (my Octavia failed to hit that sorceror even once, and rarely hit Vordakai and other mage-like bosses)

 

[Van-d-all]

Meanwhile https://www.onlysp.com/pillars-of-eternity-ii-sales-below-expectations/

 

[Sykar]

AT with 10d6 SA would get 30d6! extra damage on HR compared to Disintegrate

Not that I disagree that sneak attacks are OP, but ATs are actually broken - the improvise feat does not work with fireballs and other aoe spells (maybe I understand it in a wrong fashion, but the thing should buff them even without lv 10 feat), ranged hacking is totally broken (and you can't even remove this faux NPC after using the ability). Also, you have to pass SR which is hard to do for really dangerous enemies (my Octavia failed to hit that sorceror even once, and rarely hit Vordakai and other mage-like bosses)

Well technically you should not even need AT for SA to apply to ray spells but it is usually the class which makes most use of it. The level 10 AT feature should apply sneak attack of Fireball to all flat footed or surprised enemies and each gets hit by one instance of SA and AT is the only one who can get this feature. As to SR, AT should not have any noticeable disadvantage to a pure caster. You really only need one level of rogue to qualify iirc using a feat for extra 1d6 sneak attack to avoid taking 3 levels of rogue instead. Also there are multiple ways to improve your spell penetration and if your Octavia does not manage to break through SR regularly then you either have build her not very well or something is fuzzy about the enemy.
Broken class features are no reason to keep the retarded "feature" to apply SA to any instance of damage. It distorts balance immensely.

 

[Andnjord]

Guarded Hearth ability of Community domain did not grant any bonuses. Resolution: fixed.

Huzzah!

 

[Tacgnol]

Not quite, multiple instances of SA are applied only to full round attacks which allow you a 5-foot action only in addition during the same round which is also the reason why Scorching Ray and Hellfire Ray won't get it since they are standard (volley) attacks similar to Multishot feat which use your highest BAB only on top of hitting simultaneously and not in sequence. Otherwise you get at most one instance of SA if any.

I thought that was implied when I mentioned iteratives, but yeah that's correct.

 

[razvedchiki]

So one dip in rogue is recomended for everybody?

 

[ArchAngel]

AT with 10d6 SA would get 30d6! extra damage on HR compared to Disintegrate

Not that I disagree that sneak attacks are OP, but ATs are actually broken - the improvise feat does not work with fireballs and other aoe spells (maybe I understand it in a wrong fashion, but the thing should buff them even without lv 10 feat), ranged hacking is totally broken (and you can't even remove this faux NPC after using the ability). Also, you have to pass SR which is hard to do for really dangerous enemies (my Octavia failed to hit that sorceror even once, and rarely hit Vordakai and other mage-like bosses)

What is broken about AT is that there are ways to circumvent the requirement to qualify for that prestige class. When it was designed you were supposed to need 3 levels of rogue and class was supposed to lag 3 caster levels behind pure casters to cover for its multiple benefits (like sneak attacking 3 times with Scorching Ray while under effect of Greater Invisibility).
But thanks to addition of Accomplished Sneak attack and Vivisectionist you can now just lag 1 or 2 levels and still get that prestige class.
Lagging 3 levels would cover well that you can do much more single target damage to certain enemies that cannot see invisible.

And then in addition to that, this game implemented you don't even need Greater Invisibility to sneak attack most of the time.

 

[Israfael]

fuzzy about the enemy.

Yeah, something like 32SR+

Broken class features are no reason to keep the retarded "feature" to apply SA to any instance of damage. It distorts balance immensely.

As I said, it's not a justification or something like that. I was just saying that it could be even more powerful (but it seems the description of how improv works is not sufficiently clear for me to understand it). And "balance" in a D&D game is kinda non-existent anyway, it probably even brings SA classes on par with clerics and wizards in terms of raw output.

 

[Cael]

fuzzy about the enemy.

Yeah, something like 32SR+

Broken class features are no reason to keep the retarded "feature" to apply SA to any instance of damage. It distorts balance immensely.

As I said, it's not a justification or something like that. I was just saying that it could be even more powerful (but it seems the description of how improv works is not sufficiently clear for me to understand it). And "balance" in a D&D game is kinda non-existent anyway, it probably even brings SA classes on par with clerics and wizards in terms of raw output.

If that is the case, why are wizards dipping in Vivisectionist to get SA?

 

[Cael]

So one dip in rogue is recomended for everybody?

Vivisecionist over Rogue.

 

[Yosharian]

sneak attack isn't going anywhere, on the stream the devs did with paizo (the one after the one w/ avellone) the paizo guys said they really enjoyed how they made sneak attack work in the computer game. it was mentioned unprompted by anything just watching the game being played.

Then they're fucking morons.

 

[Yosharian]

AT with 10d6 SA would get 30d6! extra damage on HR compared to Disintegrate

Not that I disagree that sneak attacks are OP, but ATs are actually broken - the improvise feat does not work with fireballs and other aoe spells (maybe I understand it in a wrong fashion, but the thing should buff them even without lv 10 feat), ranged hacking is totally broken (and you can't even remove this faux NPC after using the ability). Also, you have to pass SR which is hard to do for really dangerous enemies (my Octavia failed to hit that sorceror even once, and rarely hit Vordakai and other mage-like bosses)

A proper AT build only loses one spellcasting level. If you can't pass SR checks reliably against a boss, that's nothing to do with you being an AT - an extra +1 isn't suddenly going to make you start passing checks reliably.

 

[toro]

So one dip in rogue is recomended for everybody?

 

[Sykar]

AT with 10d6 SA would get 30d6! extra damage on HR compared to Disintegrate

Not that I disagree that sneak attacks are OP, but ATs are actually broken - the improvise feat does not work with fireballs and other aoe spells (maybe I understand it in a wrong fashion, but the thing should buff them even without lv 10 feat), ranged hacking is totally broken (and you can't even remove this faux NPC after using the ability). Also, you have to pass SR which is hard to do for really dangerous enemies (my Octavia failed to hit that sorceror even once, and rarely hit Vordakai and other mage-like bosses)

What is broken about AT is that there are ways to circumvent the requirement to qualify for that prestige class. When it was designed you were supposed to need 3 levels of rogue and class was supposed to lag 3 caster levels behind pure casters to cover for its multiple benefits (like sneak attacking 3 times with Scorching Ray while under effect of Greater Invisibility).
But thanks to addition of Accomplished Sneak attack and Vivisectionist you can now just lag 1 or 2 levels and still get that prestige class.
Lagging 3 levels would cover well that you can do much more single target damage to certain enemies that cannot see invisible.

And then in addition to that, this game implemented you don't even need Greater Invisibility to sneak attack most of the time.

That only really affects when you get access to higher level spells, spell penetration and certain class checks. Whether it was a good idea or not to give the option to qualify with less than 3 rogue levels for AT has no bearing on how multiple instances of SA to high damage spells make them idiotically op and break the already fragile spell balance even more. A maximized empowered Scorching Ray would be a level 7 spell dealing 18*6=108 damage. By comparison the level 8 spell Polar Ray deals 25d6 = 25*3.5=87.5 damage on average. As we can see an empowered maximized Scorching Ray at level 7 is better than a level 8 spell, both are single target RTA spells. Applying SA three times would make this comparison laughable regardless of qualification for AT and is no reason to allow it especially when the rules explicitly state that the only instance in which multiple SA are applied are during full round attacks. No spell qualifies for this. The same reason that Multishot does not apply multiple instances of it. TA are so easy to hit that it completely breaks the balance. Full round attacks subtracts 5 from each subsequent attack. Scorching Ray and Hellfire Ray do not and they ignore almost all types armor bonus on top of that. Therefore no regardless how anyone wants to spin it there is not a single good argument why SA should be allowed multiple times on multi attack spells.

 

[ArchAngel]

AT with 10d6 SA would get 30d6! extra damage on HR compared to Disintegrate

Not that I disagree that sneak attacks are OP, but ATs are actually broken - the improvise feat does not work with fireballs and other aoe spells (maybe I understand it in a wrong fashion, but the thing should buff them even without lv 10 feat), ranged hacking is totally broken (and you can't even remove this faux NPC after using the ability). Also, you have to pass SR which is hard to do for really dangerous enemies (my Octavia failed to hit that sorceror even once, and rarely hit Vordakai and other mage-like bosses)

What is broken about AT is that there are ways to circumvent the requirement to qualify for that prestige class. When it was designed you were supposed to need 3 levels of rogue and class was supposed to lag 3 caster levels behind pure casters to cover for its multiple benefits (like sneak attacking 3 times with Scorching Ray while under effect of Greater Invisibility).
But thanks to addition of Accomplished Sneak attack and Vivisectionist you can now just lag 1 or 2 levels and still get that prestige class.
Lagging 3 levels would cover well that you can do much more single target damage to certain enemies that cannot see invisible.

And then in addition to that, this game implemented you don't even need Greater Invisibility to sneak attack most of the time.

That only really affects when you get access to higher level spells, spell penetration and certain class checks. Whether it was a good idea or not to give the option to qualify with less than 3 rogue levels for AT has no bearing on how multiple instances to high damage spells make them idiotically op and break the already fragile spell balance even more. A maximized empowered Scorching Ray would be a level 7 spell dealing 18*6=108 damage. By comparison the level 8 spell Polar Ray deals 25d6 = 25*3.5=87.5 damage on average. As we can see an empowered maximized Scorching Ray at level 7 is better than a level 8 spell, both are single target RTA spells. Applying SA 3 times would make this comparison laughable regardless of qualification for AT and is no reason to allow it especially when the rules explicitly state that the only instance in which multiple SA are applied are during full round attacks. No spell qualifies for this. The same reason that Multishot does not apply multiple instances of it. TA are so easy to hit that it completely breaks the balance. Full round attacks substract 5 from each subsequent attack. Scorching Ray and Hellfire Ray do not and they ignore most armor bonus on top of that. Therefore no regardless how anyone wants to spin it there is not a single good argument why SA should be allowed multiple times on multi attack spells.

It has every bearing. You will be failing SR checks more often, you will not have access to needed spell slots or high enough levels to get 3 SRays and so on.
By the time you get lvl 11 and 3 SRrays you might be fighting fire immune or fire resistant enemies (instead of Undead that you fight normally that don't have fire resistances). And since this game ends at lvl 15-16, you will only get lvl 6 or 7 spells max. If you needed 3 levels of Rogue you would end as 3R,3W, 9AT.

 

[Sykar]

Three levels would equal at most to 15% difference for breaking spell resistance. Furthermore even at higher levels spell resistance is usually not omnipresent. Ergo hardly a deal breaker. Level 15 means just barely getting one level 8 slot, two as specialist. Nice but hardly compensates for the idiotic damage bonus from SA unless you want to play CC machine/buff bot which is a viable alternative but besides the point. As I have shown applying metamagic feats make Scorching Ray already better than many other higher level damage spells and that is without SA. Triple SA would break the damage balance so hard that only braindead retards would advocate for it.
And again the rules make it clear that multiple instances of SA apply to full round attacks only. No spell attack is a full round action in addition to all the other stuff I mentioned. Summa summarum, still no argument to give Scorching Ray and Hellfire Ray three times SA.
Feel free to continue with your pointless rationalizations though.

 

[Van-d-all]

And then in addition to that, this game implemented you don't even need Greater Invisibility to sneak attack most of the time.

If it wasn't for the text adventures, you wouldn't even need stealth at all. I used it for a while, but quite fast I realized it's just BG nostalgia, and I can just take the enemies head on.

 

[Yosharian]

And then in addition to that, this game implemented you don't even need Greater Invisibility to sneak attack most of the time.

If it wasn't for the text adventures, you wouldn't even need stealth at all. I used it for a while, but quite fast I realized it's just BG nostalgia, and I can just take the enemies head on.

It's not tactically useful to have your back line start fights in stealth?

 

[Riel]

So one dip in rogue is recomended for everybody?

Vivisecionist over Rogue.

Rogue does provide free Weapon Finesse though, it can be in some cases preferable to Mutagen.

 

[Van-d-all]

And then in addition to that, this game implemented you don't even need Greater Invisibility to sneak attack most of the time.

If it wasn't for the text adventures, you wouldn't even need stealth at all. I used it for a while, but quite fast I realized it's just BG nostalgia, and I can just take the enemies head on.

It's not tactically useful to have your back line start fights in stealth?

Not really. Whats the point if the AI aggros nearest char and SA is applied to every enemy attacked by 2+ characters. Occasionally archers are a bit less retarded since they have a larger attack radius, but nothing significant.

 

[Cael]

So one dip in rogue is recomended for everybody?

Vivisecionist over Rogue.

Rogue does provide free Weapon Finesse though, it can be in some cases preferable to Mutagen.

I can see that, and I do agree with you to a large extent. I am just not convinced that a Dex build is not a trap unless you are building a ranged physical attacker (e.g., archer). Strength automatically gives a bonus to-hit and to damage plus carrying capacity. Dex, on the other hand, requires one more feat to just match what Strength does.