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

[Jasede]

I don't know if it's better but it's 100% the best thing since then.

And it's, somehow, longer than BG 2, which is frankly shocking. (Though much of it is loading times.)

The encounter design isn't quite as good as BG 2, and the itemization is iffy sometimes, and the kingdom management isn't for everyone. But other than that I have no complaints.

 

[ga♥]

Or enjoy getting fried by random bolts of lightning.

Wait, those actually hit? Because I walked around quite a bit during storms and they always seemed to drop just next to my characters.

They hit. And there is a location you get hit A LOT (and you need some spell protection).

 

[ga♥]

Spoiler

I am at the house of the edge of time. Is this the end game?

156 hours so far. I think Bg2+TOB was what, 55/60 hours?

 

[ga♥]

dual dagger monk11 + some sorts SA class 9 and accomplished sneak attack. I am pretty sure flurry of blows works with dual wield daggers

Knife Rogue + 2 levels of Fighter. Pick up Kukri.

But I want a pet. Also monk is restricted to lawful and I would need the scroll of Decline. Is ranger so bad dual wielding?

 

[Lawntoilet]

dual dagger monk11 + some sorts SA class 9 and accomplished sneak attack. I am pretty sure flurry of blows works with dual wield daggers

Knife Rogue + 2 levels of Fighter. Pick up Kukri.

But I want a pet. Also monk is restricted to lawful and I would need the scroll of Decline. Is ranger so bad dual wielding?

No, Ranger is fine. You can afford to take Vivi 1 or Knife Master 1 still since your companion is 3 levels behind, and Boon Companion bumps your pet up 4 levels.
Pet Inquisitor is pretty decent as a Ranger multi too.

 

[ga♥]

dual dagger monk11 + some sorts SA class 9 and accomplished sneak attack. I am pretty sure flurry of blows works with dual wield daggers

Knife Rogue + 2 levels of Fighter. Pick up Kukri.

But I want a pet. Also monk is restricted to lawful and I would need the scroll of Decline. Is ranger so bad dual wielding?

No, Ranger is fine. You can afford to take Vivi 1 or Knife Master 1 still since your companion is 3 levels behind, and Boon Companion bumps your pet up 4 levels.
Pet Inquisitor is pretty decent as a Ranger multi too.

Dueling swords are considered light weapons?

 

[Andnjord]

Yeah, the item distribution is all wonky. Finding troves of +5 items lying in random barrels in the middle of Pitax just hurts man. And we need more spell-scolls goddammit.

 

[Gregz]

Spoiler

I am at the house of the edge of time. Is this the end game?

156 hours so far. I think Bg2+TOB was what, 55/60 hours?

To be fair, 2/3 of that 156 hours is zone loading time.

 

[Lawntoilet]

dual dagger monk11 + some sorts SA class 9 and accomplished sneak attack. I am pretty sure flurry of blows works with dual wield daggers

Knife Rogue + 2 levels of Fighter. Pick up Kukri.

But I want a pet. Also monk is restricted to lawful and I would need the scroll of Decline. Is ranger so bad dual wielding?

No, Ranger is fine. You can afford to take Vivi 1 or Knife Master 1 still since your companion is 3 levels behind, and Boon Companion bumps your pet up 4 levels.
Pet Inquisitor is pretty decent as a Ranger multi too.

Dueling swords are considered light weapons?

I'm not sure how Dueling Swords work actually. They work with Finesse, so maybe?

 

[Chippy]

Colleague at work who loves Torment and BG2 insisted that this is better than BG2 eventhough it has some SJW stuff in it, but mostly well enough done not to be annoying.

True?

The writing is subtle. Amiri and Valerie are SJW leaning, but there's a subtlety to it that makes me smile. Outright SJW stuff (like Wakadayu) is easily handwaved and ignored. Apart from all that shit, I'd say it's the best written, funny, and tone pleasing game I've played since Arcanum.

 

[ga♥]

Spoiler

I am at the house of the edge of time. Is this the end game?

156 hours so far. I think Bg2+TOB was what, 55/60 hours?

To be fair, 2/3 of that 156 hours is zone loading time.

2/3 is too much cmon. Let's say 10%.

 

[Chippy]

Does the game cheat?. I cheated in my character's stealth to do some testing and bumped it up to 40, then stood near a particularly annoying alchemist that was in stealth himself and not only did the little fucker spot me every time, but I failed to spot him.
Can I just assume that I keep rolling a 1 on stealth and perception checks, or is there some hidden voodoo going on?.

 

[Lawntoilet]

Does the game cheat?. I cheated in my character's stealth to do some testing and bumped it up to 40, then stood near a particularly annoying alchemist that was in stealth himself and not only did the little fucker spot me every time, but I failed to spot him.
Can I just assume that I keep rolling a 1 on stealth and perception checks, or is there some hidden voodoo going on?.

I know there are some hidden enemies that need like DC 75 Perception to spot.

 

[Chippy]

Does the game cheat?. I cheated in my character's stealth to do some testing and bumped it up to 40, then stood near a particularly annoying alchemist that was in stealth himself and not only did the little fucker spot me every time, but I failed to spot him.
Can I just assume that I keep rolling a 1 on stealth and perception checks, or is there some hidden voodoo going on?.

I know there are some hidden enemies that need like DC 75 Perception to spot.

Ouch. Here's hoping they don't take a page out of the Beamdog modder's handbook for implementing difficulty as the game goes on.

 

[ga♥]

dual dagger monk11 + some sorts SA class 9 and accomplished sneak attack. I am pretty sure flurry of blows works with dual wield daggers

Knife Rogue + 2 levels of Fighter. Pick up Kukri.

But I want a pet. Also monk is restricted to lawful and I would need the scroll of Decline. Is ranger so bad dual wielding?

No, Ranger is fine. You can afford to take Vivi 1 or Knife Master 1 still since your companion is 3 levels behind, and Boon Companion bumps your pet up 4 levels.
Pet Inquisitor is pretty decent as a Ranger multi too.

What you mean by Pet Inquisitor? To go the inquisitor route?

 

[Lawntoilet]

dual dagger monk11 + some sorts SA class 9 and accomplished sneak attack. I am pretty sure flurry of blows works with dual wield daggers

Knife Rogue + 2 levels of Fighter. Pick up Kukri.

But I want a pet. Also monk is restricted to lawful and I would need the scroll of Decline. Is ranger so bad dual wielding?

No, Ranger is fine. You can afford to take Vivi 1 or Knife Master 1 still since your companion is 3 levels behind, and Boon Companion bumps your pet up 4 levels.
Pet Inquisitor is pretty decent as a Ranger multi too.

What you mean by Pet Inquisitor? To go the inquisitor route?

Sacred Huntsman. It's good on a Ranger for at least 3 levels to get Outflank on your pet.

 

[ga♥]

dual dagger monk11 + some sorts SA class 9 and accomplished sneak attack. I am pretty sure flurry of blows works with dual wield daggers

Knife Rogue + 2 levels of Fighter. Pick up Kukri.

But I want a pet. Also monk is restricted to lawful and I would need the scroll of Decline. Is ranger so bad dual wielding?

No, Ranger is fine. You can afford to take Vivi 1 or Knife Master 1 still since your companion is 3 levels behind, and Boon Companion bumps your pet up 4 levels.
Pet Inquisitor is pretty decent as a Ranger multi too.

What you mean by Pet Inquisitor? To go the inquisitor route?

Sacred Huntsman. It's good on a Ranger for at least 3 levels to get Outflank on your pet.

Not sure I'd like the lower resulting BAB though. I'll think about it. Sacred Huntsman3/Rogue2/Ranger13 would result in a lvl10 pet right? Or I can add the inquisitor level as well?

 

[Reinhardt]

Yeah, the item distribution is all wonky. Finding troves of +5 items lying in random barrels in the middle of Pitax just hurts man. And we need more spell-scolls goddammit.

Yes. For 50-60 hours you are like "YAY! New ring with 1 more AC. Time for inventory tetris" and then suddenly "Another +5 ring. Meh."

 

[Elex]

I don't know if it's better but it's 100% the best thing since then.

And it's, somehow, longer than BG 2, which is frankly shocking. (Though much of it is loading times.)

The encounter design isn't quite as good as BG 2, and the itemization is iffy sometimes, and the kingdom management isn't for everyone. But other than that I have no complaints.

it's not only long in play time, is also long in in game time.
the baron reach lvl around 15 after 2-3-4 years of adventures.
it's not 1-20 in a month.

 

[Israfael]

To come think of it, wand of freedom of movement that I got few acts ago is now super useful. Is there a way to get more of em?

 

[Lawntoilet]

dual dagger monk11 + some sorts SA class 9 and accomplished sneak attack. I am pretty sure flurry of blows works with dual wield daggers

Knife Rogue + 2 levels of Fighter. Pick up Kukri.

But I want a pet. Also monk is restricted to lawful and I would need the scroll of Decline. Is ranger so bad dual wielding?

No, Ranger is fine. You can afford to take Vivi 1 or Knife Master 1 still since your companion is 3 levels behind, and Boon Companion bumps your pet up 4 levels.
Pet Inquisitor is pretty decent as a Ranger multi too.

What you mean by Pet Inquisitor? To go the inquisitor route?

Sacred Huntsman. It's good on a Ranger for at least 3 levels to get Outflank on your pet.

Not sure I'd like the lower resulting BAB though. I'll think about it. Sacred Huntsman3/Rogue2/Ranger13 would result in a lvl10 pet right? Or I can add the inquisitor level as well?

Your Inquisitor levels will stack, you have the option to pick "Continue" for your Sacred Huntsman animal companion. You also get Judgments and True Strike to make up for BAB if you really need it, plus Divine Domain powers which can be handy.

 

[Cael]

I hope you see the problem, Grunker . Paisuck has taken muchkinism to new levels.

I don't see the problem here, though. Mind explaining it?

I have made several posts before explaining the balancing act that is 3.5. Wealth-by-level, stats, items, etc., all affect the CR of a monster, which then affect the XP gain and basically the entire system. The other part of it is that each item slot has a suggested restrictions placed on them. This means that you run into situations where you want to wear 3 rings, for example, but are limited to 2. You have to make a choice and consider oppotunity costs.

What Paisuck did was to inflate numbers, open up the slot effects and basically did everything they could to increase the power creep to, by 3.5 measures, astronomical levels. This will have a massive effect on the whole CR system, and goes a long way to explaining why Kingmaker is so out of whack in terms of challenge level and bloating.

Paisuck will have to basically re-engineer the whole system to a point they might as well abandon the whole d20 concept altogether. And as someone has already noted here recently, PF 2.0 is psychotic with the munchkinism and power bloat.

3.5 and Pathfinder are both broken. There is no balance at all. Don't even try to justify it with out-of-whack wealth level and CR's. That's just not the reason why the system is broken. It's broken because it doesn't scale well over 20 levels, and because many options are inherently better than others.

4th edition tried to "balance" the game and look what happened with that. Not everything has to be balanced. You try to start balancing a system and it comes across as a boring MMO-style game. Balance = boring.

They are broken, but there are degrees of broken. 3.5 held together far better than PF simply because the number range weren't as large. The problem with the 20 level scale is that in the end the numbers overwhelmed the d20 system on which it is based. Some people earlier in the piece advocated going to a d100 system to counter this exact problem.

Enlarging numbers breaks it faster, which is exactly what PF did. Kingmaker has numbers in the 40s at level 2. What can a d20 do against that kind of nonsense?

 

[Lawntoilet]

I hope you see the problem, Grunker . Paisuck has taken muchkinism to new levels.

I don't see the problem here, though. Mind explaining it?

I have made several posts before explaining the balancing act that is 3.5. Wealth-by-level, stats, items, etc., all affect the CR of a monster, which then affect the XP gain and basically the entire system. The other part of it is that each item slot has a suggested restrictions placed on them. This means that you run into situations where you want to wear 3 rings, for example, but are limited to 2. You have to make a choice and consider oppotunity costs.

What Paisuck did was to inflate numbers, open up the slot effects and basically did everything they could to increase the power creep to, by 3.5 measures, astronomical levels. This will have a massive effect on the whole CR system, and goes a long way to explaining why Kingmaker is so out of whack in terms of challenge level and bloating.

Paisuck will have to basically re-engineer the whole system to a point they might as well abandon the whole d20 concept altogether. And as someone has already noted here recently, PF 2.0 is psychotic with the munchkinism and power bloat.

3.5 and Pathfinder are both broken. There is no balance at all. Don't even try to justify it with out-of-whack wealth level and CR's. That's just not the reason why the system is broken. It's broken because it doesn't scale well over 20 levels, and because many options are inherently better than others.

4th edition tried to "balance" the game and look what happened with that. Not everything has to be balanced. You try to start balancing a system and it comes across as a boring MMO-style game. Balance = boring.

They are broken, but there are degrees of broken. 3.5 held together far better than PF simply because the number range weren't as large. The problem with the 20 level scale is that in the end the numbers overwhelmed the d20 system on which it is based. Some people earlier in the piece advocated going to a d100 system to counter this exact problem.

Enlarging numbers breaks it faster, which is exactly what PF did. Kingmaker has numbers in the 40s at level 2. What can a d20 do against that kind of nonsense?

Kingmaker does not "have numbers in the 40s at level 2," that's bullshit.
There is one optional encounter, that is clearly foreshadowed as deadly, that you can make it to at level 2 if you absolutely rush but will more realistically be level 3 or 4, with one enemy with 41 AC.

 

[Cael]

I hope you see the problem, Grunker . Paisuck has taken muchkinism to new levels.

I don't see the problem here, though. Mind explaining it?

I have made several posts before explaining the balancing act that is 3.5. Wealth-by-level, stats, items, etc., all affect the CR of a monster, which then affect the XP gain and basically the entire system. The other part of it is that each item slot has a suggested restrictions placed on them. This means that you run into situations where you want to wear 3 rings, for example, but are limited to 2. You have to make a choice and consider oppotunity costs.

What Paisuck did was to inflate numbers, open up the slot effects and basically did everything they could to increase the power creep to, by 3.5 measures, astronomical levels. This will have a massive effect on the whole CR system, and goes a long way to explaining why Kingmaker is so out of whack in terms of challenge level and bloating.

Paisuck will have to basically re-engineer the whole system to a point they might as well abandon the whole d20 concept altogether. And as someone has already noted here recently, PF 2.0 is psychotic with the munchkinism and power bloat.

3.5 and Pathfinder are both broken. There is no balance at all. Don't even try to justify it with out-of-whack wealth level and CR's. That's just not the reason why the system is broken. It's broken because it doesn't scale well over 20 levels, and because many options are inherently better than others.

4th edition tried to "balance" the game and look what happened with that. Not everything has to be balanced. You try to start balancing a system and it comes across as a boring MMO-style game. Balance = boring.

They are broken, but there are degrees of broken. 3.5 held together far better than PF simply because the number range weren't as large. The problem with the 20 level scale is that in the end the numbers overwhelmed the d20 system on which it is based. Some people earlier in the piece advocated going to a d100 system to counter this exact problem.

Enlarging numbers breaks it faster, which is exactly what PF did. Kingmaker has numbers in the 40s at level 2. What can a d20 do against that kind of nonsense?

Kingmaker does not "have numbers in the 40s at level 2," that's bullshit.
There is one optional encounter, that is clearly foreshadowed as deadly, that you can make it to at level 2 if you absolutely rush but will more realistically be level 3 or 4, with one enemy with 41 AC.

A Balor, a CR20 monster, has an AC of 35. A great wyrm Gold Dragon (CR27, and it would be considered under CR'd; most true dragons are) has AC of 42.

A CR 3 or 4 monster with AC 41? My point stands.

 

[Lawntoilet]

I hope you see the problem, Grunker . Paisuck has taken muchkinism to new levels.

I don't see the problem here, though. Mind explaining it?

I have made several posts before explaining the balancing act that is 3.5. Wealth-by-level, stats, items, etc., all affect the CR of a monster, which then affect the XP gain and basically the entire system. The other part of it is that each item slot has a suggested restrictions placed on them. This means that you run into situations where you want to wear 3 rings, for example, but are limited to 2. You have to make a choice and consider oppotunity costs.

What Paisuck did was to inflate numbers, open up the slot effects and basically did everything they could to increase the power creep to, by 3.5 measures, astronomical levels. This will have a massive effect on the whole CR system, and goes a long way to explaining why Kingmaker is so out of whack in terms of challenge level and bloating.

Paisuck will have to basically re-engineer the whole system to a point they might as well abandon the whole d20 concept altogether. And as someone has already noted here recently, PF 2.0 is psychotic with the munchkinism and power bloat.

3.5 and Pathfinder are both broken. There is no balance at all. Don't even try to justify it with out-of-whack wealth level and CR's. That's just not the reason why the system is broken. It's broken because it doesn't scale well over 20 levels, and because many options are inherently better than others.

4th edition tried to "balance" the game and look what happened with that. Not everything has to be balanced. You try to start balancing a system and it comes across as a boring MMO-style game. Balance = boring.

They are broken, but there are degrees of broken. 3.5 held together far better than PF simply because the number range weren't as large. The problem with the 20 level scale is that in the end the numbers overwhelmed the d20 system on which it is based. Some people earlier in the piece advocated going to a d100 system to counter this exact problem.

Enlarging numbers breaks it faster, which is exactly what PF did. Kingmaker has numbers in the 40s at level 2. What can a d20 do against that kind of nonsense?

Kingmaker does not "have numbers in the 40s at level 2," that's bullshit.
There is one optional encounter, that is clearly foreshadowed as deadly, that you can make it to at level 2 if you absolutely rush but will more realistically be level 3 or 4, with one enemy with 41 AC.

A Balor, a CR20 monster, has an AC of 35. A great wyrm Gold Dragon (CR27, and it would be considered under CR'd; most true dragons are) has AC of 42.

A CR 3 or 4 monster with AC 41? My point stands.

It is not a CR 3 or 4 monster. It's a monster you can potentially encounter at level 3 or 4, IF you ignore multiple clear warnings that this encounter will definitely be out of your league. Also unlike a Balor or a Dragon, this encounter is only hard because of its high AC, it doesn't have high HP, AB, or any really strong abilities. Plus, there is a hard counter for the fight (protection from lightning). That fight is a major exception and not at all indicative of encounter tuning at that stage of the game, which you'd know if you'd played it.