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

Sharpedge

Prophet
Joined
Sep 14, 2018
Messages
1,061
Not sure why I didn't realize this sooner but Sirocco+Fiery Body is the bomb. You might spend all of combat sleeping on the floor, but so do the enemies and you remain on full hp while they slowly wither and die. Endgame went from being slow to clear to being really easy. Blergh.
 

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
21,280
From that article it seems they also contacted D&D and got stonewalled or rejected or something. Another case of WotC shooting themselves in the foot LOL
 

Jasede

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2005
Messages
24,793
Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Good Lord, I felt like I was an invincible juggernaut! My main character is this amazing level 17 Juggernaut of a monk. 55 AC, amazing damage, fast...

Now I am at the "House at the End of Time" and everything absolutely wrecks my shit unless I summon stuff using some items I bought...
 

Cross

Arcane
Joined
Oct 14, 2017
Messages
3,036
A bit misleading title: https://en.ostrog.com/1522/

Baldur’s Gate and Infinity Engine games influenced him the most. On the other hand, Pillars of Eternity did not ‘’click’’ for him — he describes it as uncanny valley, which looks familiar, has familiar names but the nuances are very different.

kZQwsiS.jpg
 

Jasede

Arcane
Patron
Joined
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Messages
24,793
Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
AAAAAH the difficulty spike is real

08374cdc68935061726f9f081b0b7791.jpg


*plays Monk*
*sells all weapons because, lol, unarmed!*

*enemies are immune to blunt damage*

 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
From that article it seems they also contacted D&D and got stonewalled or rejected or something. Another case of WotC shooting themselves in the foot LOL
They were busy licensing D&D to actual good developers to make actual good games.



You're being ironic, right?

Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms: Very Positive
Tales from Candlekeep: Tomb of Annihilation: Mostly Positive
Pathfinder: Kingmaker: Mixed

I think the answer is clear.
 

Jasede

Arcane
Patron
Joined
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Messages
24,793
Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Some of the bugs in this game drive me nuts.

In the House at the End of Time (or whatever), you're given a Magical Lamp.

Last time I went there and game-overed, the Lamp could be toggled on and off by using it on my belt slot.
Now, after reloading, this ability no longer exists.
 

Yosharian

Arcane
Joined
May 28, 2018
Messages
10,436
Location
Grand Chien
From that article it seems they also contacted D&D and got stonewalled or rejected or something. Another case of WotC shooting themselves in the foot LOL
They were busy licensing D&D to actual good developers to make actual good games.



You're being ironic, right?

Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms: Very Positive
Tales from Candlekeep: Tomb of Annihilation: Mostly Positive
Pathfinder: Kingmaker: Mixed

I think the answer is clear.

Really? I haven't heard of either of those? They're good?

Or are you making some clever point about audience intelligence? =p
 

Jasede

Arcane
Patron
Joined
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Messages
24,793
Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
ARGH!!!

It's really cool when an RPG kills one of your party members permanently without giving you a chance to loot them.
LINZIIIII
 

Deleted Member 16721

Guest
Why are people knocking Kingdom Management? It's awesome that an RPG has it to the level of depth that Kingmaker does, it's great actually. It took me one horrendous run of the game and failing miserably to learn it, and on the second run my kingdom is Serene and I'm near the end of Act 4. You just have to manage your time well, not just the timed main quests but time in general. The game doesn't really relay that message very obviously until you realize your kingdom is crumbling and your +2 advisor should have been ranked up a year ago. Once you get the knack for handling time in the game it becomes a joy to manage and see flourish. But you can't really dick around much on Challenging (or any difficulty, really).
 

Yosharian

Arcane
Joined
May 28, 2018
Messages
10,436
Location
Grand Chien
wandering trough the underground of the mites / kobold area, found a secret door, expecting awesome loot, found 3 skeleton champion that killed everyone in half a minute

Yeah I tried that encounter too, got destroyed. My main guy tanks them quite easily, but because there's three of them, I'm not doing enough damage to them and eventually they break off and start battering my non-tank characters. Need to gear/level up.

Undead are definitely something my party is going to struggle with, what with them being immune to mind-affecting
 

HoboForEternity

LIBERAL PROPAGANDIST
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liberal utopia in progress
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
the only one can do damage to them is the PC with +1 weapon and amiri whose weapon by default is +1, harrim can use some spell that harms undead, but it's not doing much. when the tank falls, they broke trough and gutted everyone hahaha.
 

yes plz

Arcane
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Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
2,159
Pathfinder: Wrath
Is the 'First Crown' quest meant to be accessed in chapter four? I stumbled onto it but from what I remember last time I played through chapter four (back before I decided to wait for the patch) the area was blocked off by Pitax guards stopping you.
 

vazha

Arcane
Joined
Aug 24, 2013
Messages
2,069
Yay! Lvl 4. Now we have TWO smilodons in party.
That is such a noob choice. Smart players take Leopards.
Seconded. Leopards, with proper buffing of course, are superb tanks (AC goes up to 60 or so), possibly even more useful then valerie provided the pet belongs to a sacred huntsmaster. Very useful to hold the line while the rest of your party can nuke from afar & let Nokie do what he does best.

UPD: Also if I m not mistaken they get a rather decent wisdom score, further amplifying their defenses.
 
Last edited:

Yosharian

Arcane
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Messages
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Grand Chien
the only one can do damage to them is the PC with +1 weapon and amiri whose weapon by default is +1, harrim can use some spell that harms undead, but it's not doing much. when the tank falls, they broke trough and gutted everyone hahaha.
If they are proper Skeleton Champions as per PnP then it's bludgeoning damage that's needed, rather than +1 weapons
 

gestalt11

Arbiter
Joined
Apr 4, 2015
Messages
629
Yay! Lvl 4. Now we have TWO smilodons in party.
That is such a noob choice. Smart players take Leopards.
Seconded. Leopards, with proper buffing of course, are superb tanks (AC goes up to 60 or so), possibly even more useful then valerie provided the pet belongs to a sacred huntsmaster. Very useful to hold the line while the rest of your party can nuke from afar & let Nokie do what he does best.

UPD: Also if I m not mistaken they get a rather decent wisdom score, further amplifying their defenses.

A level 16 Leopard has 49 AC which is the same AC as a mastodon, a level 16 smilodon has 46. Leopards are not significantly better tanks than smilodons, but smilodons get 2 more attacaks and have power attack -4/+8 damage so they do almost double the damage. All animal companions get evasion and improved evasion and while the leopard does have the best dex, it is only by a small margin so even in that they do not come out that far ahead. The most important thing for tanking with your Animal Companion is buffs, not animal choice. But animal choice has a gigantic affect on damage.

Leopard is nice for having 3 attacks and trip. But if you think that 3 AC makes up for the extremely large difference in damage you might want to rethink that. Nor is a level 16 Leopard particularly more accurate if you turn off power attack on the smilodon since the leopard dex is only +1 or so off the smilodon's strength.

However a greater polymorhped (dragon) Leopard may come out close to as good as a smildon due to the 5 attacks that grants, but you are still missing power attacks +8 on each attack.

Leopard is the ONLY companion that lacks power attack and is therefore probably the worst choice for using greater polymorph(dragon) on. A Dog or wolf or even monitor lizard would be superior, since it would get trip with the bite and normalize to the smilodons 5 attacks in dragon form and still have power attack. If anything leopards are the real noob trap. Smilodons are the best early companion and are solidly a happy medium at high levels, only getting beaten out by the single attack trip companions when greater polymorph comes on line. Leopards are inferior to smilodons in early levels and in later levels can be replaced by a completely superior polymorphed dog.

You can get a level 12 smilodon to over 55 AC and a level 16 smilodon to right around 60.
 

gestalt11

Arbiter
Joined
Apr 4, 2015
Messages
629
Why? I understand mastodons but why leopards?
Leopards are quite good, at least on paper, as well. They are among the few pets with 2 additional, 3 total attacks, only smilodons get more. However leopards compared to smilodons:
- get better AC, eventually by a good few points,
- can trip enemies with main attack which is always nice as it can provide with AoOs for everyone within reach,
- after a few levels they should be using DEX for both attack and damage rolls (I think). And of curse DEX is also AC. This is handy when you want to buff them,
- and finally they end as medium sized instead of large. If you use several pets in addition to some characters on the frontline it might be a plus. Supposedly it can get too crowded while using several large pets in some situations.

However smilodons still get 4 additional attacks instead of "only" 2 and can't be beaten in terms of raw damage output so I wouldn't say that they are "noob choice". They're THE choice if raw damage potential is what you are looking for in a pet. If you want more AC and want the pet to contribute something to the party other than their own damage then leopard becomes very good. Personally I'd probably diversify if I had more than 1 pet in party. 1 smilodon + 1 leopard for example. But that's just me, not some objective truth. I'd like some diversity in my zoo.
Dead pet does 0 damage. I will leave it at that.

Most people seem to fail to realize that Leopard do not have Power attack and all other animal companion do. As for AC all animal companion wind up at a very similar AC number, they are all within 3 AC of each other 49 is the highest(Leopard and mastdon) and 46 is the lowest (smilodon and various others) at level 16. I think a wolf is 48 and dog 47. Also stats wise all the companions wind up only +1 or +2 different from each other. A leopards dex is only +1 or +2 different than strength on a smilodon, even more the strength on the Leopard itself is only a bit different than its dex. The fact that it traded weapon finesse for power attack was actually kind of dumb since, IIRC, they wind wind up with 28 str versus 32 dex but lose power attack for that +2 and take a net -6 on damage. And the smilodon winds up with 30 or 32 str anyway. Similarly the smilodon just winds up with 28 dex versus the Leopard 32 dex and is only +2 difference as well with the +1 size creaing the +3 AC difference. Also the lower str on leopard makes it somewhat worse at tripping than a dog and a dragon polymorphed dog does more damage anyway due to power attack, while only have I think 2 more ac.

IMO the AC differences between pets are not that substantive. The damage difference can be gigantic and special effects are substantive. The vast majority of companion AC and stats come from levels and have little to do with their type. A level 12 smildon is, IIRC, 39 AC and a level 16 is 46 AC. People seem to have taken the stats shown at the level 7 change and thought those meant something, but in reality levels even everything out to within 1,2, or 3 on most things. The main difference are feats and special attacks. Not having power attack puts Leopards in an entirely different class vs all other animal compantions and their weapon finesse is, frankly, not an advantage at all in fact Mastadon's strength is either the same or +1 better than Leopard dex. There are really only two main considerations do you want trip or damage? If you want both you can get both by NOT choosing Leopard for trip but you have to wait for level 6 arcane spells. So in general just either chose between damage (which means smilodon) or trip (Leopard is fine for this, but so are the others). But any companion can tank when properly buffed, they can all get over 60AC.

In reality Leopards don't necessarily do more damage than Mastodons with the 3 attacks versus 2 attacks, because they lack power attack and both are actually similar in damage, but the Leopard is inferior in dragon polymorph unless you really want trip in which case go with dog, since dog has better CMB and power attack.
 

Yosharian

Arcane
Joined
May 28, 2018
Messages
10,436
Location
Grand Chien
Yay! Lvl 4. Now we have TWO smilodons in party.
That is such a noob choice. Smart players take Leopards.
Seconded. Leopards, with proper buffing of course, are superb tanks (AC goes up to 60 or so), possibly even more useful then valerie provided the pet belongs to a sacred huntsmaster. Very useful to hold the line while the rest of your party can nuke from afar & let Nokie do what he does best.

UPD: Also if I m not mistaken they get a rather decent wisdom score, further amplifying their defenses.

A level 16 Leopard has 49 AC which is the same AC as a mastodon, a level 16 smilodon has 46. Leopards are not significantly better tanks than smilodons, but smilodons get 2 more attacaks and have power attack -4/+8 damage so they do almost double the damage. All animal companions get evasion and improved evasion and while the leopard does have the best dex, it is only by a small margin so even in that they do not come out that far ahead. The most important thing for tanking with your Animal Companion is buffs, not animal choice. But animal choice has a gigantic affect on damage.

Leopard is nice for having 3 attacks and trip. But if you think that 3 AC makes up for the extremely large difference in damage you might want to rethink that. Nor is a level 16 Leopard particularly more accurate if you turn off power attack on the smilodon since the leopard dex is only +1 or so off the smilodon's strength.

However a greater polymorhped (dragon) Leopard may come out close to as good as a smildon due to the 5 attacks that grants, but you are still missing power attacks +8 on each attack.

Leopard is the ONLY companion that lacks power attack and is therefore probably the worst choice for using greater polymorph(dragon) on. A Dog or wolf or even monitor lizard would be superior, since it would get trip with the bite and normalize to the smilodons 5 attacks in dragon form and still have power attack. If anything leopards are the real noob trap. Smilodons are the best early companion and are solidly a happy medium at high levels, only getting beaten out by the single attack trip companions when greater polymorph comes on line. Leopards are inferior to smilodons in early levels and in later levels can be replaced by a completely superior polymorphed dog.

You can get a level 12 smilodon to over 55 AC and a level 16 smilodon to right around 60.
Well, shit. Time to fire + rehire my cleric merc
 

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