Pathfinder: Kingmaker

[Sloanzilla]

I figured the XP difference was on purpose and for a reason. In the pen and paper assault on the Stag Lord's fort, for example, you fight maybe 8 total people. You fight at least 30 in the video game. Same thing with the Lonely Barrow. The Temple of the Elk goes from a single encounter to four. So you'd have to lower the xp totals to keep you from hitting Level 15 by Book 3.

I'm finding enough justification to change the settings from "pen and paper" because of changes like this. It's just not fair to your poor deceased and reloading party members to see it as the same style of game. The Lonely Warrior in the pen and paper game does not have three attacks that start at +20.

Disagree that the ranged thing isn't a big deal. Range is already overpowered in Pathfinder's ruleset, so walking up and standing next to an archer should give you *some* melee advantage.

I tested the rapid shot thing a few times and, at least based on the skeleton archers shooting me, they seemed to get two damage rolls per single hit? I suppose this averages out to being about the same, but since every monster in this demented little game has a +90 to hit, it just translates to moar damage.

[Renegade Paladin]

Okay, I'm seriously stuck. Help?

Spoiler: The ending (I think) of the Season of Bloom arc

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So I found the Everblooming Flower by falling through the right fissure in the Womb of Lamashtu. But when I destroy it, it simply sprouts back and offers the exact same dialogue. What gives?

[Maryring]

Been playing the game for a while now. And beyond the memory leak that makes the game load slower and slower as the game goes on, I haven't had too many problems with the game.

Until recently.

Spoiler: Lizardmen

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I'm really struggling with this lizardmen quest. Ostensibly you're supposed to be able to save both the lizardmen and the kid by being creative and using glitterdust to root out the will-o-wisp but, as is, the kid just keeps on dying without anything happening after I kill the will-o-wisp. It's... highly frustrating.

[Inarius]

Been playing the game for a while now. And beyond the memory leak that makes the game load slower and slower as the game goes on, I haven't had too many problems with the game.

Until recently.

Spoiler: Lizardmen

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I'm really struggling with this lizardmen quest. Ostensibly you're supposed to be able to save both the lizardmen and the kid by being creative and using glitterdust to root out the will-o-wisp but, as is, the kid just keeps on dying without anything happening after I kill the will-o-wisp. It's... highly frustrating.

Spoiler

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It's not really explained, but the good way to save the kid is by talking to his mother after the witch. She'll then ask you to tell her son she loves him. When you meet the son for the first time tell him his mother loves him. Then when you kill the wisp, either by getting the help of the rattler or using glitterdust yourself, he wont be fully possessing to the kid so the kid wont die too.

[Kaptin Keen]

So - I bought it, and now 25% of my group has been taken by slavers. I'm angry. Also, I'm down a guy (M/F), so I can't really just blunder in there and kill everyone. Goddammit!

[Tome]

So - I bought it, and now 25% of my group has been taken by slavers. I'm angry. Also, I'm down a guy (M/F), so I can't really just blunder in there and kill everyone. Goddammit!

You can just kill the slavers instead of letting them take someone. It's not even a particularly hard fight.

Beyond that, I guess you could go back to Oleg's and hire a mercenary. I'd recommend a paladin, as you don't get one otherwise and there's some nice gear for them later on.

[Sloanzilla]

The slaver encounter followup is actually pretty well scripted and can be done with a smaller group.

[Maryring]

Spoiler

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It's not really explained, but the good way to save the kid is by talking to his mother after the witch. She'll then ask you to tell her son she loves him. When you meet the son for the first time tell him his mother loves him. Then when you kill the wisp, either by getting the help of the rattler or using glitterdust yourself, he wont be fully possessing to the kid so the kid wont die too.

Spoiler

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Except I did that, and the kid kept dying either way. Until he didn't for some reason. This game is really bugged.

Also, the Kingdom management RNG is... bad. There appears far too many problems right at the end of the month that are impossible to deal with because I've already got all my advisors busy dealing with other problems that show up right before the end of the month.

[Kaptin Keen]

You can just kill the slavers instead of letting them take someone. It's not even a particularly hard fight.

I'm sure I could have save scummed through it, had I had the patience. But essentially it was a question of either not missing a single save - or lose the fight. Which I didn't have the patience for. Going to their camp later and destroying them was hugely satisfying, almost making up for my annoyance =)

[Narkis]

I'm sure I could have save scummed through it, had I had the patience. But essentially it was a question of either not missing a single save - or lose the fight. Which I didn't have the patience for. Going to their camp later and destroying them was hugely satisfying, almost making up for my annoyance =)

The fight was very doable at level 2 for me. I only had to reload once because I massively underestimated them the first time around. The second time was Sleep on the fighters, Amiri and Valerie charge the mages, my wizard and Linzi focus on the archer, and that is that. I still had to buy 2 remove blindness scrolls from Jhod, but that was only a minor annoyance.

Still, all's well that ends well.

[Kaptin Keen]

The fight was very doable at level 2 for me.

I'm sure it was. Yea. But my only caster was a bard, my only crowd control spell a Daze. So imagine the fight wasn't the same for me, eh?

[Tome]

The fight was very doable at level 2 for me. I only had to reload once because I massively underestimated them the first time around. The second time was Sleep on the fighters, Amiri and Valerie charge the mages, my wizard and Linzi focus on the archer, and that is that. I still had to buy 2 remove blindness scrolls from Jhod, but that was only a minor annoyance.

Still, all's well that ends well.

Waaaaiiiiit... sleep actually works on things? I assumed that the HD were as inflated as the rest of the stats (given BAB and HP numbers) and everything and its mother would be out of the 4HD range for sleep.

[Spore]

Waaaaiiiiit... sleep actually works on things? I assumed that the HD were as inflated as the rest of the stats (given BAB and HP numbers) and everything and its mother would be out of the 4HD range for sleep.

The technic league guys (archers and melee brutes) are mostly just annoying rather than really dangerous. But the sword and board fighters can take a beating, and the archers are well placed by the engine.

[Narkis]

I'm sure it was. Yea. But my only caster was a bard, my only crowd control spell a Daze. So imagine the fight wasn't the same for me, eh?

Yes, I see. A difference in methodologies I suppose, though I would recommend at least having Linzi learn Hideous Laughter. You're making it harder for yourself without some form of cc.

Waaaaiiiiit... sleep actually works on things? I assumed that the HD were as inflated as the rest of the stats (given BAB and HP numbers) and everything and its mother would be out of the 4HD range for sleep.

Yep. I'm playing on challenging with normal enemies - AKA what I thought to be core rules - and Sleep has saved my bacon A LOT. I mean, not anymore obviously, but I can't imagine how much harder the start of the game would've been without it.

[Otomodachi]

I had a pretty funny little moment playing Kingmaker last night.

I was pretty tired, and definitely kinda high (it's legal in my state, yay!) and got to the part where you go to that one location where you can ally with the mites in their war. I had Regongar in me party, and he started punning pretty hard.

NOT a big fan of puns personally, and since my character is chaotic evil I figured the sarcastic dialogue choice that vaguely threatens death to those who pun was appropriate. Regonar just laughs it off and the punning intensified.

All of the sudden I am presented with a dialogue option among 3 that boils down to- "[Attack] Begone from my presence you foul thing!" and I'm sitting there having a serious moral quandary, like "man I do hate puns but Regongar is wicked useful and kinda amusing but hot dang do I ever hate puns" for a good 2, 3 minutes before I realize the option is to attack the MITES. A real moment where I'm like "dang, this game GETS me", hahahaha.

Having fun playing a SLIGHTLY less evil gnome sylvan sorcerer. What? Tartuccio was an evil sorcerer gnome SPY? PERISH THE THOUGHT! Me? No, I'm cool, see I have a dog that loves me, I must be good. Nothing to see here.

[Inarius]

Also, the Kingdom management RNG is... bad. There appears far too many problems right at the end of the month that are impossible to deal with because I've already got all my advisors busy dealing with other problems that show up right before the end of the month.

Yeah no kidding, I literally had more problem events popup in the last 6 days of a month than I had advisors to handle them. I was able to take on 4 problems, but the last 3 I had to basically take the hit on. I wound up having to save scum to see which events had the worst failure penalties and plan everything out just right to cover as many problems as I could. I still took 2 hits to my kingdoms stability though, weee.

Edit: And it appears my kingdom gets completely destroyed within the first week of the next month no matter what I do. I go from perfectly stable to collapsed in 2 weeks after finishing the monster bloom yay!
Edit 2: Seems its a bug with the quest. If you get a popup saying you have 2 months left to complete the monstrous bloom the game will bug out after you complete it and spam you with dark epidemics and monstrous sighting events until you collapse. The only way around it is to go back to an earlier save and do it before you get the popup, but I don't know if I have any earlier saves since I thought "oh two months? thats a lot of time!"

[Spore]

Yep. I'm playing on challenging with normal enemies - AKA what I thought to be core rules - and Sleep has saved my bacon A LOT. I mean, not anymore obviously, but I can't imagine how much harder the start of the game would've been without it.

Not that much to be honest. I have only Linzi available to cast it (and since Kingmaker skips the "relearn spell rules" for sorcerers and bards, it is permanent) I'd rather have other spells. But to be fair, it would have been more useful on her than either Expeditious Retreat and Remove Fear.

And the bard's spell list is seriously lacking, it gets much better on second level but you only have spells that are entirely negated by a save, or are of a short duration. They could've at least given bards Charm Person but I suppose that could break some scripts.

[Longes]

Yeah no kidding, I literally had more problem events popup in the last 6 days of a month than I had advisors to handle them. I was able to take on 4 problems, but the last 3 I had to basically take the hit on. I wound up having to save scum to see which events had the worst failure penalties and plan everything out just right to cover as many problems as I could. I still took 2 hits to my kingdoms stability though, weee.

Edit: And it appears my kingdom gets completely destroyed within the first week of the next month no matter what I do. I go from perfectly stable to collapsed in 2 weeks after finishing the monster bloom yay!

This is generally a sign that you wasted too much time. Monster events get more and more frequent the more time goes.

[Maryring]

This is generally a sign that you wasted too much time. Monster events get more and more frequent the more time goes.

You mean by doing things like improving the ranks of your barony? As in, actually acting like a baron(ess)? Because nothing wastes more time than having to spend 2 weeks doing nothing. But of course you have to do that, because otherwise you're not gonna unlock more advisor positions that's important for those events and projects that require new advisor positions.

Also. Is it just me or are trade routes too expensive to be worth it? 500 BP for 4 BP extra per month (really 2 because of taxes). That gives you 125 weeks before you break even. At the rates that weeks are progressing compared to the plot, that feels like it won't pay itself back until after you've won.

[Kaptin Keen]

If there is anything I hate with unconditional fury in a game like this, it's OP random encounters.

It's not even 'wouldn't it be fun to drop a demi-lich on the party'. It's just a simple caster with two tanks in front, and a bunch of stealthed sneak attackers behind.

And I have nothing to deal with it. Valerie can tank the front no sweat, but I cannot ignore the caster. I cannot hit the caster, because for whatever reason, .... no one ever ****ing hits. And while I can send Amiri to fight the sneak attackers, she lasts a single round, then she's dead. Because the 'always miss' thing doesn't apply to the enemy, only to me.

Could I build a party that could deal with this? Yes, easily. But I've decided to roll with the NPC's the developers handed me, and that's apparently a crime punishable only by death - repeatedly.

Oh ... and please do tell me again how this is an easy type of encounter if I just use my AOE crowd control spells. I love hearing that.

[Spore]

And I have nothing to deal with it. Valerie can tank the front no sweat, but I cannot ignore the caster. I cannot hit the caster, because for whatever reason, .... no one ever ****ing hits. And while I can send Amiri to fight the sneak attackers, she lasts a single round, then she's dead. Because the 'always miss' thing doesn't apply to the enemy, only to me.

Got anymore specific info, pref. spoilered since that encounter is still a surprise for others?

I don't assume the caster is as heavily prebuffed as BG 2's wizards with 6+ spells in contingencies. But I do think they have very decent dex plus mage armor (netting AC 17-19) plus first round casting shield (AC 23). Then one could pile on mirror image or Blur and basically be unhittable. Barring a lucky save-or-suck like Tasha's or similar, you are screwed.

[Kaptin Keen]

Got anymore specific info, pref. spoilered since that encounter is still a surprise for others?

I don't assume the caster is as heavily prebuffed as BG 2's wizards with 6+ spells in contingencies. But I do think they have very decent dex plus mage armor (netting AC 17-19) plus first round casting shield (AC 23). Then one could pile on mirror image or Blur and basically be unhittable. Barring a lucky save-or-suck like Tasha's or similar, you are screwed.

It's just a random encounter, nothing to spoil. Caster, two tanks, round two a couple of sneak attack archers plus a sneak attack melee spawn behind. And no, they don't seem to need any buffs to trigger a long string of miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss. I'm not even using power attack, something I feel is generally just plain stupid, but in this game I might as well not have picked it. I don't have attack bonus to spare.

Anyways, I won. As usual, it hinged on save scumming until the caster failed a save, giving me space to deal with the archers at my back. If you cannot make an encounter challenging without spawning invisible sneak attackers behind, maybe you're in the wrong line of work, friend (by which I mean the game designers, of course).

So be fair, said archers die in a single hit from Amiri, but she still needs to reach them. And even so, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have won if the caster hadn't Color Spray'ed her own two tanks - who didn't save, while Valerie did.

Now I've found something else to be pissed about =)

Turns out I can have a ton of food in my inventory, but if that food isn't labelled 'Rations' - I can't eat it, and thus I cannot rest. That's annoying enough on it's own. It doesn't improve my mood that I'm at the tree, and ... lo and behold ... there's dex poison which is permanent. So I already went all the way back to the fort to heal up, then went all the way back, then found out that only rations are edible food. Other food is for buffs, but doesn't fill the tummy.

And thus we learn from experience how stuff that seems obvious, isn't. Yay.

Gah, I'm so annoyed by this. It's an otherwise excellent game. Why do designers have to be such fools? =)

[Spore]

Buff food does not sate you. What an weird oversight. I can understand magical elven dexterity salad not substitute for a full meal but some of the stuff is extremely calorific!

[Kaptin Keen]

Buff food does not sate you. What an weird oversight. I can understand magical elven dexterity salad not substitute for a full meal but some of the stuff is extremely calorific!

I'm literally starving with a backpack full of rice, potatoes, meat, chocolate .. eh =D

And just now, Linzi wound up inside a cage I just freed ... some others from. There's no door, she's quite stuck in there. Grand! =)

[Inarius]

This is generally a sign that you wasted too much time. Monster events get more and more frequent the more time goes.

I do realize waiting too long can cause multiple quest related monster events to pop a month, what happened to me didn't have any connection to that though. I wound up getting 5 non quest related problem events to pop within the last 6 days of the month. Then on top of that I wound up getting a bug that caused me to get a dark plague event every 2-3 game days that would then auto fail the moment it occurred. This was after I had finished the related quest chain so I shouldn't of been getting any more dark plague or monster uprising events at that point. It is apparently a known issue related to the season of the bloom quest chain, and the only way to not get that specific bug is to beat the quest before the two months remaining popup occurs.

[Kaptin Keen]

I just found a random encounter vs 3 skeletons.

They were skeletons. In chain shirts, with large shields. They should have AC 16, meaning that literally every single character on my team should have better than even odds of hitting them.

I still get long strings of miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, and then - oh lo and behold - a god damned sneak attack, somehow.

Which is another thing. So I can sneak attack things that are immune. Is that then why my barbarian also constantly goes down to sneak attacks? Cause she's god damned immune too.

I do love, however, that my ranger brought her pet elk to the celebration of her victory over the stag lord. I call her Elka.

[Spore]

Undead in Pathfinder are no longer automatically immune to sneak attacks. Also if your barb lacks Improved Uncanby Dodge he can still be flanked and idk if even with uncanny dodge the ranged sneak attack still should workhave.

[Kaptin Keen]

Undead in Pathfinder are no longer automatically immune to sneak attacks. Also if your barb lacks Improved Uncanby Dodge he can still be flanked and idk if even with uncanny dodge the ranged sneak attack still should workhave.

Yes, it turns out this is one of the changes in Pathfinder I didn't know about. The sneak attacks vs. undead isn't the point though. These undead go down from 11 hp of damage. Why is it I have a 80-90% miss chance against them?

Actually, why would I ever have such a high miss chance against any enemy in any game? It's like the Viscount - only, I could neither hit nor affect the Viscount, at all.

[Aotrs Commander]

Seems a really odd way to go about things. It would be far better to inflate the hit points than the ACs/saves, I think; even if the difficulty is the same, you feel like you're doing something.

I run my PCs (my 6-8 PCs) on a high stat system (usually base 8, 36 points, point-for-point) and often the NPCs are on a similar level (I even have my so-called "munchkin array", which is something like 18/16/14/12/10/8 which I often use); my players are not only pretty good mechanically, but tactically. And I found eventually, the best way to make the boss fights more challenging was to, essentially, give the boss multiple iterations of their hit points (and allow them to spend a block of hit points to essentially break save or suck/dies or have a save reroll at the expense of an effective negative level). That works much better. I wonder if maybe I should suggest it to Owlcat.

[Crustypeanut]

So I've finally passed 200 hours played in this game.. and its definitely a hot mess. But an insanely fun hot mess.

So in case you guys don't know, you can buy custom mercenaries at level 1 for a mere 100g each - the pathfinder recruiter *says* she needs 500g, and you can't do it if you have less than 500g, but it only deducts you 100g. Just food for thought for those who want to make a custom party (like me).

I've gotten to the beginning of Book 3 (ended up starting over because I wasn't using custom companions and I don't like my companions lol), and the difficulty gets easier once you get past the first few levels. With a few exceptions of course, like this one treant-like owlbear. You thought the treant-like bear was tough, wait till you fight this thing. I had to turn it down to easy to kill it. I'm normally on Challenging.

Even though there needs to be a lot of bugfixes, optimization (****ing load screens), polish and some QoL stuff (WHERE IS MY TELEPORT SPELL GOD DAMMIT), I'm having a hugely fun time - I really hope they continue to fix stuff and don't end up 'moving on'. So far it seems they're not moving on, which is good, but because its listed as a complete game (its not, its more like late-stage early access with all the major content there), I'm always worried that they will.