Pathfinder Why Owlcat's Kingmaker Sucks, in Plain Language

[Delterius]

IIRC your barony is essentially a vassal of Brevoy and your Kingdom is closely allied with them. Pitax would never attempt a direct assault on your kingdom, there's no reason to attempt to cozy up to them or even maintain friendly relations: They want your kingdom. Not like they try to hide it at all.

Everyone does. The problem is Linzi is starting shit when you're not in a state to deal with it if they were to decide to get a little more hands-on about you. And the part where she fucking stole from you, of course. Let's not pretend there aren't strong reasons to have Linzi punished over what she does.

you should drink some absinthe

it will help you r e l a x

 

[Ol' Willy]

is this post available in english?

Sorry man, America created the genre, released some of the best RPGs in the history (well, most of them), but what America produces now? Soulless cashgrabs permeated with woke and awful writing, awful gameplay and pathetic attempts of being "cinematic". What happened to America? What happened to its RPG spirit?

 

[Ol' Willy]

have Linzi punished

I guess you can find rule 69 exhibits of her being punished if you persistent enough.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

America created the genre

It's spelled Austrians.

 

[Xamenos]

people do win and lose arguments on the internet. Happens all the time, really.

Oh my god, you are so precious! All the time, really! That's so cool! Is there a scoreboard or a hall of fame somewhere where I can see all these won arguments on the internet? And how does winning work? Do we count goals, touchdowns, bases, or something else? And can I claim victory now, or do you want to drag this out even more?

Actually it's more to circumvent any restrictions your GM might put in against you just buying the items you want, especially if you want items that are intended for higher level characters than yourself. For instance, if you feel like crafting Candles of Invocation at level 4 so you can spam Gate for less than half the price of actually casting it yourself long before you reach level 17. Pretty handy. It can also give your Cleric access to spells as if he were 2 levels higher but usually you just Gate a spellcaster with 9th level spells or whatever. And then your time pressure evaporates because someone decided to summon superman to run roughshod over your campaign and make himself rich enough to craft more candles.

So, let me get this straight: You're playing with a DM that refuses to allow you to buy a Candle of Invocation at L4, but has no problem if you craft one. Craft an item that requires the crafter to be able to cast Gate, a 9th level spell, with a caster level of 17. At character level 4. And not only that, but he then allows you to Gate in a creature that has 9th level spells and less than 8 Hit Dice, because, remember, Gate only allows you to control something with at most twice your HD. Damn, I knew you've been playing with shitty DMs, but that's more shitty than I thought. You really do have my sympathies.

(Also, what's that Outsider that has 9th level spells and 8HD or less? Might decide to throw it against a party some time)

And for any spectators that might be watching: Remember how I said that many of the "exploits" are caused by stupid powergamers misreading the rules so they can stroke their epeen with no effort? This is a perfect example.

This wasn't a serious argument of spellcaster supremacy. It was an example of how overboard some shitty DMs get with their idea of "consequences" for not doing things the way they want, however benign.
No son. I was pointing out how your "DM should fix it with in-campaign consequences" argument easily lends itself to stupid behavior, especially when you advocate it as a solution for huge problems that aren't so easily fixed.

So it was a complete waste of our time, and something that does not support your argument at all. Most DMs are shitty, news at 11.

Old bug got fixed. I'm not seeing the "Gotcha!" shit you're trying to pull.

*Talks out of his ass*
"Hey, you're talking out of your ass and here's proof"
"No, wait! I'm not talking out of my ass. I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT, LISTEN TO MEEEEE"

This has been you this entire thread.

As opposed to my detailing of specific mechanical faults, your anecdotal evidence rather resembles an ostrich burying its head in the sand.

By "detailing of specific mechanical faults" you mean "reciting the same stupid list that's been around forever, right"? Because i gotta tell you, mentioning stuff by name is not the same as detailing them. And that's applicable to the rest of your life as well, consider it my free advice of the day. No need to even thank me!

No, that is definitely shit you should ban, for sanity's sake, along with probably Cherry Blossom Spell and Familiar Spell (which tends to be a lot like Quicken metamagic on steroids), but it's a mark against the system that they put out obscene bullshit like this. Also, I'm pretty sure a lot of this wasn't intentional powercreep but Paizo being too stupid to realize what they were doing.

Finally some sense! Looks like you're not completely hopeless, after all. So you do agree no competent DM would run into these issues at his table, right?

What's your clever solution, attempting to deny people the resources to cast the spells in the first place? Don't leave us in suspense here. If you have good solutions, name 'em, instead of blustering how you totally have answers for all of this that don't resemble indirect attempts at bans.

No, no, no, don't turn this around on me. I asked you if you've ever actually used these to break a game. Well, go on friend. Regale us with your tales of glory. Let us know exactly how you used those to break a game. Tell us, and then I'll tell you what your DM should have done to stop you. I promise "Kick you out for even suggesting such idiocy" is not going to be my answer to all of them!

But I sure hope they are better than the Candle of Invocation example above.

Illusions can make a mess of things, when applied with a sufficient degree of cleverness. But I will grant you there are ways to deal with that one.

And another supposed problem that you admit is really not a problem at all at the hands of a competent DM. Is anyone keeping score? Am I winning the argument yet?

Yes, but those are high-level spells. Everyone accepts that a spellcaster will "win" the game with high level spells. The funny thing is that they claim it won't happen at early levels. Color Spray Oracle's nuisance factor is being bullshit whenever it applies from level 2. And then you as the GM probably "cleverly" respond by redoing all your encounters to be immune and whatnot because that is not at all a sign that a certain stunt might be busted. And like I noted later, nothing obligates you to make color spray the only bullshit up your Oracle's sleeves.

High-level spells? Bitch please, I'm beginning to doubt you've ever even played DnD at all. There are encounter-ending will-save spells at every single spell level. Yes, even at low levels. Off the top of my head we've got Sleep - Tasha's Hideous Laughter - Slow - Confusion - Dominate/Feeblemind and so on. I still fail to see how the Color Spray Oracle is any stronger than a Sorcerer who takes those spells and MAYBE Heighten.

And there are a lot of different types of divinations and ways to use specific information to make wider inferences. So your new solution is constant time pressure with no days off ever and probably constant combat and no days spent traveling either and hope to run the spellcaster dry so he doesn't cast divinations throughout the campaign. That's getting into bullshit "consequences" territory where you're basically trying to indirectly ban something with suspiciously tailored consequences for attempting to do so. Generally the solutions to divinations are gentleman's agreements, a ban, or lying (another "clever" solution).

Again with the strawmanning and the misinterpretations. How the fuck did you go from "prevent you from wasting multiple days like that" to "no days off ever"? Are you dyslexic? Illiterate? Just plain old retarded, perhaps? I know you've suffered in life, but I'm running out of explanations. Help me out here!

As for divination, some info is perfectly fine. The real solution, as I said, is some time pressure so they don't waste multiple days of the party's time, and a DM unafraid to use Divination's limitations and actually say "No, you learn nothing new about this subject. You've already asked this question. No, rephrasing the question does not make it a new question."

It's with unfamiliar places where it gets stupid. Scry and die was the most famous stunt here. There's also the part where your party can choose to spend every night at the mage's personal mansion. And that's not counting the silliness of plane shifting an enemy (but this will cost you loot). But even with familiar places there are loads of ways teleportation can get used to bring friends (by which I'm not referring to party members) and avail yourself of amenities around the world whenever you please.

Unfamiliar places means Greater Teleport, a 7th level spell. And let me ask again, have you ever actually pulled off a scry and die? Against an important villain? Because it's far from a campaign ending exploit.
I see absolutely no problem with the party deciding to waste two spells, at least one of those a 7th level, to spend every night in luxury. And the same goes about amenities, hired help, etc. If you, as the DM, are not expecting wilderness survival to become utterly trivial past a certain point you are a shit DM.
Plane shift: 5th level Cleric spell. ALSO 5th level Cleric spell: Slay Living. I fail to see the problem. And let's not even get into what a Wizard could be doing with that 6th level slot.

That's not even me making a point, dumbass. Keep going, son.

"Tell me where I've misinterpreted anyone"
"Here's a single example of you misinterpreting me, one of many"
"I WASN'T EVEN MAKING A POINT, DUMBASS"

Oh god, am I arguing with a 6-year old? It feels like I'm arguing with a 6-year old.

Nah, I'll give you this one. You're right about this much. I haven't. I just remember looking through the kingdom building rules in the past and seeing what a mess they were. I was pretty sure Owlcat lifted it closely but I guess not. The artisans were obviously an Owlcat addition, of course.

Wait, are you actually admitting you were talking out of your ass about something? Be still my beating heart, not all hope is lost after all!

Most parties tend to call it quits when their spellcaster is out of spells and try to rest for the day.

FUCKING FINALLY! An admission! Bolded and enlarged for emphasis, because this is at the core of everything you get wrong about the rules and allows me to skip pretty much everything else you've said about casters being OP. Casters are supposed to be balanced by having limited spells per day, while the martials can go all day without running out of the good stuff. And you're saying casters are overpowered if you rest after every encounter? No. Fucking. Shit. Do I really need to tell you why this is not supported by the rules and is entirely the fault of shitty players and their shittier DMs? Or will you let me have it?

Loot availability isn't really a factor in regular PnP especially when you let people have item creation feats. Spellcasters are pretty much the least item-dependent classes in the game.

MY POINT EXACTLY you fucking imbecile. Casters are not item-dependent. Martials are. Restricting loot swings the balance towards the casters. Crafter feats are not necessary at all for this. Not when magic shops are everywhere and the DM is encouraged to tailor found loot so it's useful to the party. A DM who decides to restrict loot DEVIATES from the rules, and the rules aren't really at fault when they're not being followed, are they?

 

[grimace]

Xamenos

I look forward to your video essay.

 

[LannTheStupid]

Is there a scoreboard or a hall of fame somewhere where I can see all these won arguments on the internet?

Going completely offtopic: yes. It's called "election results".

 

[Xamenos]

Is there a scoreboard or a hall of fame somewhere where I can see all these won arguments on the internet?

Going completely offtopic: yes. It's called "election results".

What's Trump's position on caster supremacy in 3.PF?

 

[Desmodus Rotundus]

Can you refuse a companion or are you railroaded into accepting all of them? Asking since I told the goblin to stay in their village, since I didn't really want it, and he just fucking joined anyway.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Can you refuse a companion or are you railroaded into accepting all of them? Asking since I told the goblin to stay in their village, since I didn't really want it, and he just fucking joined anyway.

You can always give him the Khalid Treatment™.

 

[Absinthe]

Wow Xamenos. You really do treat arguments as being all about running your mouth. There wasn't a lick of sense in all that shit you just said. Seems you got buttflustered there and decided to drown it all out with stupidity and verbiage.

Looks like you got major-league ass-pained as all your "counter-arguments" seem to be large amounts of sarcasm, incredulous impressions, and "No, you need to tell me more!" bitching. Has anyone ever told you that you argue like a child? Maybe arrested development comes with playing so much PF, I dunno. And I don't rightly care either. I'm just gonna note this thing you hate to acknowledge: PF is busted as fuck and there are tons of ways to break it.

So, let me get this straight: You're playing with a DM that refuses to allow you to buy a Candle of Invocation at L4, but has no problem if you craft one. Craft an item that requires the crafter to be able to cast Gate, a 9th level spell, with a caster level of 17. At character level 4. And not only that, but he then allows you to Gate in a creature that has 9th level spells and less than 8 Hit Dice, because, remember, Gate only allows you to control something with at most twice your HD. Damn, I knew you've been playing with shitty DMs, but that's more shitty than I thought. You really do have my sympathies.

(Also, what's that Outsider that has 9th level spells and 8HD or less? Might decide to throw it against a party some time)

Since you don't understand the PF item creation rules, I guess I'll have to spell this out to you: under Pathfinder rules (as a special new addition), you can raise an item's creation DC with +5 for each prerequisite you do not meet to create an item anyway. So you can just craft the CL17 Gate item at level 4 by taking +5. Neat, innit? PF rules open up the doors to all kinds of Highly Balanced things.

And also, since you don't understand the Gate rules very well, Gate only allows you to control something with HD equal to your CL, but you can call anything with up to twice your CL. Since the item is casting the Gate for you and items cast spells at minimum CL (17 for Gate) by default, you can control anything with up to 17HD and call anything with up to 34HD (like Hastur - yes, from HP Lovecraft).

Now, you asked how Item Creation feats might be broken, so I gave you an example. And no, Candle of Invocation isn't the only item you can break the game with. Just the most blatant example. And there's a difference between "You can't find that item you're looking for at the local magic shop" and "That item is banned from the game" son. But by all means, ban Candle of Invocation too. It's busted anyway.

And for any spectators that might be watching: Remember how I said that many of the "exploits" are caused by stupid powergamers misreading the rules so they can stroke their epeen with no effort? This is a perfect example.

Dude, you just proved you don't know how PF works. Let me guess, you usually end arguments at your table by pulling the "I'm the DM and I'm right!" card, don't you? Or maybe your players are even more clueless than you, I don't know.

By "detailing of specific mechanical faults" you mean "reciting the same stupid list that's been around forever, right"? Because i gotta tell you, mentioning stuff by name is not the same as detailing them. And that's applicable to the rest of your life as well, consider it my free advice of the day. No need to even thank me!

Look kid, don't try to win arguments by attempting semantic nitpicks & shitty put-downs. It makes you look like a clown. And I ain't reciting some list floating on the internet.

Finally some sense! Looks like you're not completely hopeless, after all. So you do agree no competent DM would run into these issues at his table, right?

Nope. That's wrong. Dazing Spell is explicitly legal in Pathfinder Society, the official organized drop-in campaign system run by Paizo, so PFS DMs have to let you use it. Don't ask why. I can only assume Paizo is fond of broken and overpowered things.

Also, the fact that copious house-ruling and content limitations are integral to your "authentic" PF experience says it all about how well PF works out of the box.

No, no, no, don't turn this around on me. I asked you if you've ever actually used these to break a game. Well, go on friend. Regale us with your tales of glory. Let us know exactly how you used those to break a game. Tell us, and then I'll tell you what your DM should have done to stop you. I promise "Kick you out for even suggesting such idiocy" is not going to be my answer to all of them!

But I sure hope they are better than the Candle of Invocation example above.

Are you seriously expecting that I ask DMs to join Pathfinder games (when PF is a system I dislike) dozens of times just so I can break their games each time with all the various different flavors of bullshit that are possible in PF? No. Stop acting like it takes live campaign experience to figure out how this shit works when the stunts I pointed out are pretty fucking straightforward. I gave you a list of bullshit you can pull, and all of these stunts have already been successfully pulled by others anyway.

This shit just looks like an attempt at setting up some "You haven't jumped through enough hoops for me to be satisfied with your argument" complaining to me, which I honestly do not give a fuck about. if you think I'm full of shit, go ahead and point out how. I already gave you my points. But don't sit there and whine that I have to do shit your way for you to be happy, which you probably never will be.

And another supposed problem that you admit is really not a problem at all at the hands of a competent DM. Is anyone keeping score? Am I winning the argument yet?

I strongly suspect that you haven't experienced the depth of creativity that is possible with illusions but whatever.

High-level spells? Bitch please, I'm beginning to doubt you've ever even played DnD at all. There are encounter-ending will-save spells at every single spell level. Yes, even at low levels. Off the top of my head we've got Sleep - Tasha's Hideous Laughter - Slow - Confusion - Dominate/Feeblemind and so on. I still fail to see how the Color Spray Oracle is any stronger than a Sorcerer who takes those spells and MAYBE Heighten.

You realize you're just making my argument for me here, right? Also, you missed Charm Person, Suggestion, Glitterdust/Pyrotechnics, Scare, Command Undead, and more. And then there are reflex save stunts to wreck enemies, including Grease, Mudball, Create Pit, etc. For Fortitude saves there is Ghoul Touch, Blindness/Deafness, Stinking Cloud, etc.

Main point being, spellcasters have tons of tools to win encounters pretty much immediately.

Again with the strawmanning and the misinterpretations. How the fuck did you go from "prevent you from wasting multiple days like that" to "no days off ever"? Are you dyslexic? Illiterate? Just plain old retarded, perhaps? I know you've suffered in life, but I'm running out of explanations. Help me out here!

As for divination, some info is perfectly fine. The real solution, as I said, is some time pressure so they don't waste multiple days of the party's time, and a DM unafraid to use Divination's limitations and actually say "No, you learn nothing new about this subject. You've already asked this question. No, rephrasing the question does not make it a new question."

Spamming divinations isn't just about asking the same question dozens of times, dumbass. It's about asking tons and tons of different information about upcoming events to a point where you can draw a map of the upcoming dungeon, write down stat-blocks of all the enemies, create a plot outline before it occurs, find out where the magic artifact you are looking for really is, anticipate any and all traps that are set for your party along the way, and even get the solutions to any puzzles you might be faced with before you were even supposed to be aware of the puzzle's existence. The issue is that players get to play 20 questions back to back, ask even more detailed questions than that, and otherwise just keep going as long as they have extra spell slots to keep asking questions. They don't need to keep asking the same question or rephrase it slightly to get more info and confirmation on what they are dealing with.

You want to stop a player who wants to do this with time pressure, you basically need to give them so much time pressure that they have zero downtime because the moment they do get that day off they can afford to divine like crazy and your "time pressure" solution just fails. They can also divine just with leftover spell slots at the end of a day or leftover unprepared slots if they are prepared casters.

Unfamiliar places means Greater Teleport, a 7th level spell. And let me ask again, have you ever actually pulled off a scry and die? Against an important villain? Because it's far from a campaign ending exploit.

It bypasses an entire dungeon really, sometimes more, and you can also just use regular Teleport (a 5th level spell). Sure you roll a die, but the odds are still strongly in your favor that it works. 100 miles per caster level is usually close enough for any of these stunts anyway. Hell you can even use Dimension Door for skipping a dungeon and cutting right to the end.

I see absolutely no problem with the party deciding to waste two spells, at least one of those a 7th level, to spend every night in luxury. And the same goes about amenities, hired help, etc. If you, as the DM, are not expecting wilderness survival to become utterly trivial past a certain point you are a shit DM.

You really don't need to wait all the way until Level 13 for Wizards to start pulling off this stuff. But it's true that Pathfinder fails horribly at making wilderness survival an issue. Amenities is usually a minor thing, but the bigger issue is bringing in friends or visiting the local magic mart to buy tailored solutions for tomorrow's fight and so on. It's that they get to have the resources of the entire setting at their fingertips (as far as they can afford it or just talk people into helping them, which isn't too hard for most heroic quests) just two spellcasts away.

Plane shift: 5th level Cleric spell. ALSO 5th level Cleric spell: Slay Living. I fail to see the problem. And let's not even get into what a Wizard could be doing with that 6th level slot.

Slay Living is nerfed into uselessness in PF. But Plane Shift is still going strong.

Anyway, I find it interesting that many of your arguments about spellcaster supremacy not being a thing basically boil down to having made your peace with spellcasters shitting all over all kinds of mechanics and being able to make fights massively lopsided or instantly ended within a single spellcast. I'm not sure what I still need to argue on the combat front, since you basically agreed on all the major points of how spellcasters just shit all over it and your only response on how that's fine is that you made your peace with the brokenness of it all and just want to throw more encounters at 'em.

"Tell me where I've misinterpreted anyone"
"Here's a single example of you misinterpreting me, one of many"
"I WASN'T EVEN MAKING A POINT, DUMBASS"

Oh god, am I arguing with a 6-year old? It feels like I'm arguing with a 6-year old.

I think you're being the 6 year old here, tbh. You were bitching that I was getting your shit wrong and misinterpreting crap. In the end all you have is something that's practically a semantic nitpick by willfully misinterpreting hyperbole and not even an actual argument.

Wait, are you actually admitting you were talking out of your ass about something? Be still my beating heart, not all hope is lost after all!

Yeah, I let you have that one. It's been a long time since I'd looked at the Kingdom Making rules, grats.

FUCKING FINALLY! An admission! Bolded and enlarged for emphasis, because this is at the core of everything you get wrong about the rules and allows me to skip pretty much everything else you've said about casters being OP. Casters are supposed to be balanced by having limited spells per day, while the martials can go all day without running out of the good stuff. And you're saying casters are overpowered if you rest after every encounter? No. Fucking. Shit. Do I really need to tell you why this is not supported by the rules and is entirely the fault of shitty players and their shittier DMs? Or will you let me have it?

Here's where you go full retard: Parties will go out of their way to create opportunities to rest so that their spellcasters don't run out of steam, so just because you're trying to dump extra encounters on them doesn't mean they'll actually pace themselves the way you want them to. And as you yourself noted earlier on, there are plenty of low level encounter-ending spells too, so as spellcasters level up they have so many encounter-ending spells up their sleeves that the demand to just keep going after the casters are out of spells results in trying to cram a positively ridiculous amount of encounters down players' throats. Not to mention that PF tends to be fairly insistent on the whole 4-5 encounters per day model which you have to go out of your way to break (8+ encounters and shit) in order to ensure that martials get a decent stab at being important instead of just being the mop-up crew after the spellcasters have already made all the enemies useless and even then spellcasters can still shit on every fight if they're decent.

MY POINT EXACTLY you fucking imbecile. Casters are not item-dependent. Martials are. Restricting loot swings the balance towards the casters. Crafter feats are not necessary at all for this. Not when magic shops are everywhere and the DM is encouraged to tailor found loot so it's useful to the party. A DM who decides to restrict loot DEVIATES from the rules, and the rules aren't really at fault when they're not being followed, are they?

Here's the part that you're missing though, dumbass: While martials are just fucking crippled without magic loot and spellcasters will manage just fine, spellcasters also manage to become a shitton more ridiculously overpowered with magic loot, which does not happen to martials.

The most basic shit that any decent spellcaster will do for instance is buy metamagic rods of Quicken Spell and Persistent Spell, which drastically boost their spellcasting power. And then there are tons of magic items that let spellcasters do all kinds of insane shit that martials cannot compete with unless they're playing full-on WBLmancer builds where they basically shit magic like spellcasters do, only through the use of magic items as an intermediary (like the Candle of Invocation stunt mentioned earlier) and shit like UMD and scrolls/wands/etc.

The most basic problem with spellcaster supremacy in Pathfinder is that you can solve just about every problem with a spellcaster and yet there are a ton of challenges you will completely fucking fail at if you are playing a non-caster martial. And to top it off, for spellcasters, things like feats and magic items are great ways to boost their power even further and become crazier. For martials, a lot of their feats and magic item budget have to be spent just so they can do their basic trick of hitting shit, actually doing damage, and not dying. And even with all that a spellcaster can frequently do more damage than them in a single spellcast (like Summon Monster).

So like I said, Pathfinder is a broken and imbalanced mess.

 

[NJClaw]

So like I said, Pathfinder is a broken and imbalanced mess.

It's p. fun though

 

[smaug]

So like I said, Pathfinder is a broken and imbalanced mess.

It's p. fun though

Yea, who gives a shit about balance, game is fun.

Wasn't Baldur's Gate 2 the same way?

 

[Cleric of Asmodeus]

I love this game.

 

[NJClaw]

I love this game.

ITT: people with prestigious avatars sharing prestigious opinions.

 

[Absinthe]

So like I said, Pathfinder is a broken and imbalanced mess.

It's p. fun though

To each their own, but I don't see the fun in a game where the gameplay is shit. Play a martial and the game consists of full attacking every round mostly. Maybe you'll activate an item or even perform a maneuver, but it requires resource investment and optimization to make maneuvers dependable, but usually you're doing pretty much the same shit all combat every combat. Maybe this repetitive shit combat appeals to the grind sim players out there, I dunno. Play a spellcaster and you do have a ton of options at your disposal, but if you try to have fun with actually flexing your creativity and using the options at your disposal smartly, you will easily roflstomp and that stops being fun before long.

I get the feeling that to enjoy Pathfinder you have to be able to enjoy AAA garbage where there is no real challenge and the combat is easily busted and you're really there for the "deep narrative" and power fantasy bullshit side of it.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Yeah, that's a sound theory. Kingmaker is very popular among garbage AAA lovers.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Absinthe You may want to re-think your position on melee in Kingmaker. Using pole-arms and combat maneuvers is pretty cool. Dirty Trick alone gives you 3 options. Cleave becomes incredibly good if you splash Thug and Cornugon Smash. Triggers AoO like crazy. Same with Bull Rush or Disarm. Trip requires a bit of investment, but is not a problem for a pure martial class like a fighter or slayer. Freebooters & Slayers have their own abilities, and Barbarians have plenty to fidget with. Kingmaker is actually the first "D&D" game where I have ever found martial classes equally, if not more satisfying, than spell casters.

 

[Gregz]

Absinthe You may want to re-think your position on melee in Kingmaker.

Don't confuse the Pathfinder PnP System with this piece of garbage from Owlcat.

 

[Shadenuat]

What, couldn't get any attention in BG3 thread so returned to your Russian Overlords?

 

[LannTheStupid]

returned to your Russian Overlords?

I think he's Polish. They always come back.

 

[Cleric of Asmodeus]

Absinthe You may want to re-think your position on melee in Kingmaker. Using pole-arms and combat maneuvers is pretty cool. Dirty Trick alone gives you 3 options. Cleave becomes incredibly good if you splash Thug and Cornugon Smash. Triggers AoO like crazy. Same with Bull Rush or Disarm. Trip requires a bit of investment, but is not a problem for a pure martial class like a fighter or slayer. Freebooters & Slayers have their own abilities, and Barbarians have plenty to fidget with. Kingmaker is actually the first "D&D" game where I have ever found martial classes equally, if not more satisfying, than spell casters.

Couldn't agree more with you.

 

[Cleric of Asmodeus]

Hell, I get endorphins from the little tactical minigame of “can I proc dreadful carnage here or should I use dirge?” each combat

Also, martials going nova with a chain of attacks, cleaving finish, opportunist and outflank and dreadful carnage procs blooming over and over is ungghhh *falls back into gamer chair in euphoric stupor*

 

[Erikkolai]

What happens if Linzi doesn't join you at the end of the prologue, you don't recruit her when confronting Tartuccio the first time, and you leave her in the cage?

Does she infest your capital on her own somehow?

 

[Xamenos]

Absinthe first of all, you are right. I shouldn't talk to a child like that. I apologize (this means I'm sorry) for my choice of words. It's not your fault you weren't taught properly. I'll ignore your petty insults from now on and do what little I can to help you in your education.

RE: Candle of Invocation
Again, you are right. You have demonstrated (shown) the folly (silliness) of relying on memory alone. I will be citing (mentioning) the relevant rules from now on.

Item creation rules

Apparently one can craft a Candle of Invocation at L4 just by passing a very easy DC27 Spellcraft check. Why one would want to waste a feat just to risk that roll when failing the roll means wasting the materials and failing by 5 or more creates a cursed item remains a mystery. And no, pulling one over a passive-agressive DM who won't allow you to buy stuff but has no problem with you crafting them is still not a valid reason

And also, since you don't understand the Gate rules very well, Gate only allows you to control something with HD equal to your CL, but you can call anything with up to twice your CL. Since the item is casting the Gate for you and items cast spells at minimum CL (17 for Gate) by default, you can control anything with up to 17HD and call anything with up to 34HD (like Hastur - yes, from HP Lovecraft).

Gate

No Hastur for you, but you can Call something with 17HD and control it for a task that is NOT "a longer or more involved form of service". I sure hope whatever you Called is satisfied with this control and does not bear you a grudge after it ends. You have convinced me it is not a useless item, but it still is far from campaign-breaking. Not when the 18k it requires is a significant (huge) portion of an L4's party combined wealth, a wealth that includes the equipment they're wearing.

Wealth by Level

As for Calling something strong, let me tell you a story:

Once upon a time there was a little boy, brave but foolish. That boy lighted a candle that called a big, angry monster from its home. And when that monster stood before the boy, its eyes shining brightly with malice, its many teeth flashing inside its huge mouth, its chest rising with anger at the foolish boy who dared disturbe its rest. And then the brave boy, having faith in the power of his candle, did something incredibly foolish: He asked the monster to serve him.

Now, my boy, how do you think the story ends?

By "detailing of specific mechanical faults" you mean "reciting the same stupid list that's been around forever, right"? Because i gotta tell you, mentioning stuff by name is not the same as detailing them. And that's applicable to the rest of your life as well, consider it my free advice of the day. No need to even thank me!

Look kid, don't try to win arguments by attempting semantic nitpicks & shitty put-downs. It makes you look like a clown. And I ain't reciting some list floating on the internet.

Now, now. You shouldn't lie like that. I'm not your parents, so I won't tell you not to lie at all, but you should at least make it believable. Or do you really expect me to believe that you, completely by yourself, came up with the exact same list of "problems" that's been going around tabletop RPG forums for more than a decade? That you didn't see them mentioned elsewhere, did not participate in another discussion about Pathfinder's supposed issues?

Finally some sense! Looks like you're not completely hopeless, after all. So you do agree no competent DM would run into these issues at his table, right?

Nope. That's wrong. Dazing Spell is explicitly legal in Pathfinder Society, the official organized drop-in campaign system run by Paizo, so PFS DMs have to let you use it. Don't ask why. I can only assume Paizo is fond of broken and overpowered things.

You have already made it apparent (clear) that you don't know how things work. Otherwise you would know the difference between Organized Play and normal games and how relevant those guidelines are to the rest of us.

Stop acting like it takes live campaign experience to figure out how this shit works when the stunts I pointed out are pretty fucking straightforward. I gave you a list of bullshit you can pull, and all of these stunts have already been successfully pulled by others anyway.

So you admit you have no live campaign experience, and are simply conveying (I've tried to explain in parentheses the more difficult words that might give you trouble, but I don't know a simple synonym for this one. I'm sorry. You should open a dictionary if you don't know what it means) what others have told you about the stunts they pulled off successfully. Just like I've been saying from the beginning. I know you haven't played Kingmaker, but have you even played a single game of tabletop Pathfinder in your life?

This shit just looks like an attempt at setting up some "You haven't jumped through enough hoops for me to be satisfied with your argument" complaining to me, which I honestly do not give a fuck about. if you think I'm full of shit, go ahead and point out how. I already gave you my points. But don't sit there and whine that I have to do shit your way for you to be happy, which you probably never will be.

I have replied in detail to the points you made in detail. I have replied in passing to the points you made in passing. Seeing it like you are is a problem with you, not me.

The Color Spray Oracle shits on PF with a vengeance until high levels (although if you go out of your way to pump your charisma score, you can still end fights with Color Spray at level 15 or so).

"Color Spray Oracle": A will-save, mind-affecting spell is your example of abuse? Really? Do you even know how many other high-level will-save spells you could be using that don't require you to build around removing their limits?

Yes, but those are high-level spells. Everyone accepts that a spellcaster will "win" the game with high level spells. The funny thing is that they claim it won't happen at early levels. Color Spray Oracle's nuisance factor is being bullshit whenever it applies from level 2. And then you as the GM probably "cleverly" respond by redoing all your encounters to be immune and whatnot because that is not at all a sign that a certain stunt might be busted. And like I noted later, nothing obligates you to make color spray the only bullshit up your Oracle's sleeves.

High-level spells? Bitch please, I'm beginning to doubt you've ever even played DnD at all. There are encounter-ending will-save spells at every single spell level. Yes, even at low levels. Off the top of my head we've got Sleep - Tasha's Hideous Laughter - Slow - Confusion - Dominate/Feeblemind and so on. I still fail to see how the Color Spray Oracle is any stronger than a Sorcerer who takes those spells and MAYBE Heighten.

You realize you're just making my argument for me here, right? Also, you missed Charm Person, Suggestion, Glitterdust/Pyrotechnics, Scare, Command Undead, and more. And then there are reflex save stunts to wreck enemies, including Grease, Mudball, Create Pit, etc. For Fortitude saves there is Ghoul Touch, Blindness/Deafness, Stinking Cloud, etc.

Main point being, spellcasters have tons of tools to win encounters pretty much immediately.

I have restored the whole discussion, which was about the Color Spray Oracle supposedly being overpowered, not about spellcasters having tons of tools. Scripta manent. (Those words are in an old, old langue called "Latin". Roughly, they say in English "written words stay". And what this means is that you should be careful about what you write, as it is more difficult to pretend you said something different than if those words had been spoken instead)
And if you genuinely forgot what it was about, I would suggest speaking to a doctor about it. Losing your train of thought like this generally only happens to much, much older people.

you can also just use regular Teleport (a 5th level spell). Sure you roll a die, but the odds are still strongly in your favor that it works.

Teleport

76% chance of success is not what I would consider odds that are strongly in your favour. How many times do you think you have to roll those dice before something goes catastrophically (real badly) wrong?

Anyway, I find it interesting that many of your arguments about spellcaster supremacy not being a thing basically boil down to having made your peace with spellcasters shitting all over all kinds of mechanics and being able to make fights massively lopsided or instantly ended within a single spellcast. I'm not sure what I still need to argue on the combat front, since you basically agreed on all the major points of how spellcasters just shit all over it and your only response on how that's fine is that you made your peace with the brokenness of it all and just want to throw more encounters at 'em.

I'm not sure what you've been reading, but people other than me have also been telling you that martials are fine. If you want proof, just head to the main Kingmaker thread and look for the screenshots Desiderius frequently posts where he explodes stuff with martials. All I'm saying is that tabletop combat is not so different, and caster supremacy is not actually true there just as it's not true for the computer game.

Here's where you go full retard: Parties will go out of their way to create opportunities to rest so that their spellcasters don't run out of steam, so just because you're trying to dump extra encounters on them doesn't mean they'll actually pace themselves the way you want them to.

This is true in most cRPG (though not in Kingmaker to the same extent) and in tabletop games where the DM plays the monsters as if it's Diablo or WoW and they're simply sitting in a room waiting to die like the goods bags of XP and loot they are. This is not how a competent DM should do it. You can very easily prevent rest-spaming if you just play the bad guys as if they're the intelligent beings that they generally are. So when the party breaks the door, clears a room and rests because the wizard spilled all his juice just have things progress in their absence. The simplest solution is time pressure, where the bad guy's plan finishes while they waste time. Or you could have the bad guys send out patrols to ambush them in their sleep. Or they could fortify and prepare for the attack they know is coming. Or they could simply pack up and leave, letting the party have the empty, useless dungeon. All it takes is some imagination and some willingness to have the player suffer actual Consequences for their Choices.

Also, the Pathfinder rules have no guideline for the number of encounters per day. 3.5 did, but PF characters are stronger on average than 3.5's equivalent. And Paizo's adventures all have many, many more encounters than simply 4-5 per day.

The most basic shit that any decent spellcaster will do for instance is buy metamagic rods of Quicken Spell and Persistent Spell, which drastically boost their spellcasting power.

Rod of Quicken price

Look at that Wealth by Level table above and tell me, at what level will that decent spellcaster do that most basic thing? And what equipment will the fighter have at the same level with the same money?

The most basic problem with spellcaster supremacy in Pathfinder is that you can solve just about every problem with a spellcaster

You maybe be able to solve any problem, but you cannot solve every problem. There's a huge difference, unless you're rest spamming. And if you try in a normal game the party will just get annoyed at having to carry the now-commoner who thought he should waste his spells in problems that could be solved with mundane (normal, not-magical) means without wasting any resources.

You know, your manner of ignoring the practical to focus on the theory really reminds me of commies and the ways they argue. Though you are kind of the opposite in that a commie believes in theoretical solutions and ignores the practical problems they create, while you believe in theoretical problems and ignore the practical solutions they have.

So like I said, Pathfinder is a broken and imbalanced mess.

And like I said, it only matters if you're theorycrafting in a forum instead of actually playing.