Pathfinder Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition - now with turn-based combat

[Jermu]

after finishing wrath decided to test this with unfair cotw with optional stuff turned on, dear god there is shitload of feats to study

prologue final fight took 20+ tries, Amiri did not spawn and kineticist lady casting animation got stuck so she was just a meatshield
even slime chair took 7-10 tries

I got punished immediately for trying to abuse monk dip, time to respec
my beloved grease what did they do to you

still trying to figure out brawler build, sadly can only have 1 stance so need to choose between crane/dragon/pummeling.

dragon ferocity would have some synergy with shatter defense + dmg
pummeling stance -> bully should go well with maneuver training
crane is crane

most likely need to go with crane so I dont get immediately 1 shotted so that reduces options to take advantage out of maneuver training

 

[Yosharian]

Yeah one of the issues I have with COTW is that it replaces one meta with another, you have a ton of stuff that's nerfed but then it introduces a ton of new OP shit

It also suffers from insane feature creep

I will probably make a team for it at some point though

 

[Lodis]

Replaying this game while waiting for Rogue Trader to be playable. Man I forgot how fucking dumb Valerie is, that 9 INT is well earned.

 

[volklore]

Yeah one of the issues I have with COTW is that it replaces one meta with another, you have a ton of stuff that's nerfed but then it introduces a ton of new OP shit

It also suffers from insane feature creep

I will probably make a team for it at some point though

I think the amount of tools it adds is a bit too much for kingmaker's encounter design.
I already find TTT to be a bit much for Wrath and TTT is a much more limited scope mod.

 

[Yosharian]

Yeah one of the issues I have with COTW is that it replaces one meta with another, you have a ton of stuff that's nerfed but then it introduces a ton of new OP shit

It also suffers from insane feature creep

I will probably make a team for it at some point though

I think the amount of tools it adds is a bit too much for kingmaker's encounter design.
I already find TTT to be a bit much for Wrath and TTT is a much more limited scope mod.

What do you mean by tools? Like feats and shit?

 

[volklore]

Yeah one of the issues I have with COTW is that it replaces one meta with another, you have a ton of stuff that's nerfed but then it introduces a ton of new OP shit

It also suffers from insane feature creep

I will probably make a team for it at some point though

I think the amount of tools it adds is a bit too much for kingmaker's encounter design.
I already find TTT to be a bit much for Wrath and TTT is a much more limited scope mod.

What do you mean by tools? Like feats and shit?

available classes/debuffs/spells yeah. I wish there was a version of it with just implementation of missing features to already available classes, like spell blending for magus etc...

 

[Jermu]

about 4 hours and I figured out build for my mc

1 dual curse oracle
1-2 mutagenic mauler brawler
x soulbound summoner

aasimar angelkin 19 str 7 dex 14 con 7 int 14 wisdom 18 charisma

this guy looked cool so I wanna test it out

dual curse dip is obvious for cha armor so can dump dex but brawler gives plenty of nice stuff:

can dump int and get this anyway so u get int feats such as crane stuff

=> free unarmed strike for crane

then there is possibility for some natural attack shenanigans from oracle's bite attack + summoner's evolution sharing

This system is too autistic even for me so I keep companions pure classes so I don't need to think too much


I spent couple of hours figuring out brawler build but weapon restriction is annoying for flurry, I searched wiki about kingmaker weapons and those were pretty awful that count as close fighter weapon group / monk

 

[Desiderius]

after finishing wrath decided to test this with unfair cotw with optional stuff turned on, dear god there is shitload of feats to study

prologue final fight took 20+ tries, Amiri did not spawn and kineticist lady casting animation got stuck so she was just a meatshield
even slime chair took 7-10 tries

I got punished immediately for trying to abuse monk dip, time to respec
my beloved grease what did they do to you

still trying to figure out brawler build, sadly can only have 1 stance so need to choose between crane/dragon/pummeling.

dragon ferocity would have some synergy with shatter defense + dmg
pummeling stance -> bully should go well with maneuver training
crane is crane

most likely need to go with crane so I dont get immediately 1 shotted so that reduces options to take advantage out of maneuver training

Let Val or a party pet tank for you. Not worth nerfing what your class does well. Focus on that. Can’t afford the malus or being underleveled in your base class.

 

[Jermu]

this is working fine so far (lvl 2, 1 oracle 1 summoner)
+ fighting defensively

next lvl I get boon companion + crane style + mobility 3 so think I survive early game with some occasional f9

slower spell progression might be too much later though oh well I just respec if needed

 

[volklore]

after finishing wrath decided to test this with unfair cotw with optional stuff turned on, dear god there is shitload of feats to study

prologue final fight took 20+ tries, Amiri did not spawn and kineticist lady casting animation got stuck so she was just a meatshield
even slime chair took 7-10 tries

I got punished immediately for trying to abuse monk dip, time to respec
my beloved grease what did they do to you

still trying to figure out brawler build, sadly can only have 1 stance so need to choose between crane/dragon/pummeling.

dragon ferocity would have some synergy with shatter defense + dmg
pummeling stance -> bully should go well with maneuver training
crane is crane

most likely need to go with crane so I dont get immediately 1 shotted so that reduces options to take advantage out of maneuver training

Let Val or a party pet tank for you. Not worth nerfing what your class does well. Focus on that. Can’t afford the malus or being underleveled in your base class.

Unfair kingmaker makes it worth nerfing yourself in the long run for less pain in the early game imo. Mid to late game stats are infinitely more forgiving than early game one. Not commenting on that build in particular but the overall idea of trading early game power for mid- late game power.
That's one area where WoTR is much, much improved over kingmaker : Unfair early game is way more pleasant due to smother difficulty buff curve and better early game access to consumeables. WotR also scales the difficulty way better in the mid-game (although I think DLCs screwed with the original balance a bit) which makes trading dipping for early game spikes a lot more punitive.

 

[Yosharian]

That's why you use the mod that changes difficulty scaling so that the inverted difficulty curve is fixed

Also Wrath still doesn't get this right, the Shield Maze is the hardest part of the game by far

 

[Desiderius]

after finishing wrath decided to test this with unfair cotw with optional stuff turned on, dear god there is shitload of feats to study

prologue final fight took 20+ tries, Amiri did not spawn and kineticist lady casting animation got stuck so she was just a meatshield
even slime chair took 7-10 tries

I got punished immediately for trying to abuse monk dip, time to respec
my beloved grease what did they do to you

still trying to figure out brawler build, sadly can only have 1 stance so need to choose between crane/dragon/pummeling.

dragon ferocity would have some synergy with shatter defense + dmg
pummeling stance -> bully should go well with maneuver training
crane is crane

most likely need to go with crane so I dont get immediately 1 shotted so that reduces options to take advantage out of maneuver training

Let Val or a party pet tank for you. Not worth nerfing what your class does well. Focus on that. Can’t afford the malus or being underleveled in your base class.

Unfair kingmaker makes it worth nerfing yourself in the long run for less pain in the early game imo. Mid to late game stats are infinitely more forgiving than early game one. Not commenting on that build in particular but the overall idea of trading early game power for mid- late game power.
That's one area where WoTR is much, much improved over kingmaker : Unfair early game is way more pleasant due to smother difficulty buff curve and better early game access to consumeables. WotR also scales the difficulty way better in the mid-game (although I think DLCs screwed with the original balance a bit) which makes trading dipping for early game spikes a lot more punitive.

This is exactly backwards.

AC isn’t power. You’re trading *all game* effectiveness in your class role for early game AC you don’t need if you manage aggro properly.

Where you absolutely need every last ounce of AB/CMB to have an impact as a Brawler on Unfair is the early game and you need to be unlocking upgrades (and upscaling) of your class abilities well into the midgame.

No wonder people think the classes and archetypes are weak. You’re not even playing them! You’re just playing variations of the same shitty underleveled Monk!

Don’t design for solo play when you’ve got a full party.

 

[volklore]

I don't think I wrote about archetypes being bad or weak. I think most of them are good. That's not the point of my post at all.

 

[Desiderius]

That was another thread. They claimed they didn’t mean weak as in bad but the universal dips end up being weak in both senses. Focus on what your class brings to the table and getting *that* there ASAP whatever the difficulty, especially on Unfair.

 

[Average Manatee]

That's why you use the mod that changes difficulty scaling so that the inverted difficulty curve is fixed

Also Wrath still doesn't get this right, the Shield Maze is the hardest part of the game by far

Wrath maintains its difficulty decently IMO until chapter 3. Kingmaker is basically 100% trivial aside from prologue/chapter 1/scattered optional fights that you can put off till later.

Have to remember that the campaigns are (probably) balanced for premade character builds and autoselected feats, and from there difficulty is just adding a predetermined set of stats/buffs to enemies. Not really much room to work with, an optimized team build is always going to have a negative difficulty curve.

 

[Jermu]

strong independent woman

kingmaker buffbot is quite awkward to use after wrath version, that was wonderful

 

[Desiderius]

That's why you use the mod that changes difficulty scaling so that the inverted difficulty curve is fixed

Also Wrath still doesn't get this right, the Shield Maze is the hardest part of the game by far

Wrath maintains its difficulty decently IMO until chapter 3. Kingmaker is basically 100% trivial aside from prologue/chapter 1/scattered optional fights that you can put off till later.

Have to remember that the campaigns are (probably) balanced for premade character builds and autoselected feats, and from there difficulty is just adding a predetermined set of stats/buffs to enemies. Not really much room to work with, an optimized team build is always going to have a negative difficulty curve.

Idk, man.

Pitax (with a couple exceptions) is too easy but if you find what’s before and after too easy you’re a better player than I am.

It’s the Mythics/merging that solves Wrath and P:K doesn’t have those. Merging Mythics combo well with Martial MCs BTW, especially Monk.

I guess if you stack up all the weird tricks but at that point why not just play a resilient, well-balanced party and go for minimal reloads?

I like difficulty curve mod but the front end of that can be handled by the player. Nobody’s making you play Unfair from the beginning. Last couple times I did speed run through Ch1to get to the good part (KM).

 

[Desiderius]

strong independent woman

View attachment 45725

kingmaker buffbot is quite awkward to use after wrath version, that was wonderful

And gets pwned. Owlcat games are subversive of dominant narratives.

 

[Jermu]

summoner is pretty bugged went from level 3->4 and eidolon did not gain level, toyboxed few more levels to summoner and then it gained levels so after lvl 3 its 1 level behind. tried to toybox 1 level to it but did not work

evolutions are also bugged some levels I can pick like 4-5 evolutions and some such as reach or first tier AC multiple times. annoyingly you can't pass evolutions so Im forced to pick bugged amount of features. time to respec I guess to other class. my mc brawler/oracle/summoner abomination worked very well but swapping equipment for arcane spell casting is annoying (spell failure) + bugged summoner so I try something else. I also checked out just having lvl 3 soulbound summoner, eidolon could get 32 AC + fighting defensively with just picking natural AC evolution. summoner's ability to give personal buffs to eidolon is very good, shield spell is the obvious choice

beastmorph / vivi combination seems very meta, does not give away anything useful that vivi gets and gains few nice feats for free. I probably check out beast / vivi into master chymist keeps sneak attack progression going too with some additional benefits. guess nok nok can test this one out

other tested classes:
ninja (linzi) is very good, mirror image is pretty great and customizable uses for ki points stuff
occultist battle host (jaethal) is probably my favorite class so far, very strong and has plenty of spells
vindictive bastard (valerie) feels meh so far even when on paper it looks pretty great
bloodrager primalist (amiri) is great too little bit squishy but enlarge person gives enough reach. hits like a truck. primalist > barb

psychic is something I want to test next when I get fitting companion for that class

also since buffbot is tedious to use I need to plan my party so that it does require too many buffs to work

 

[Desiderius]

primalist > barb

Not really. Barb has it’s own advantages. Only thing that’s a waste on Barb is Danger Sense and on the Boat even that can be good with some of the trap set-ups.

Weird thing about Primalist is I found myself wanting some of those Bloodline abilities instead. Bloodrager has a little too much going on.

 

[Desiderius]

Ninja is fun if a lot of work. You can usually get whatever it is you’re splashing Vivi for some other way without nerfing your class progression. Sneaks get pretty easily outclassed with the exception of wildshaping which is sadly still somewhat undersupported outside Shifter.

If you want Alchemist Shifter the Metamorph archetype is underrated.

 

[volklore]

psychic is something I want to test next when I get fitting companion for that class

Psychic is pretty sick if you want to make a Mind affecting DC caster. Magambyan telepath subclass sacrifice a bit of amplifications for druid spells which gives the psychic spell list a lot more versatility. They also get an amplification that allows to affect plants with mind-affecting and language based spells. Psychic get access to an amp that allows a mind affecting spell to affect undead as well. With psychelia discipline you also get a 1 min/lvl cognatogen. They can spike DC quite high, would be a great class for WotR :<
Main weakness for me is the lack of feats (in CoTW there is a lot of good featlines for casters like eldritch heritage and spell perfection which does help casters with more feats like wizards), and the limited phrenic pool unless you dump a lot of stats. Some disciplines have mechanics to recover phrenic pool however : like the Pain one which probably make a great force damage build with focused force phrenic amp and metamagic : topple ... or the Pageantry which gives you a DC boost as a move action and the ability to recover phrenic pool by helping companions with skill checks.

I am replaying this with CoTW on unfair with a wizard rn, Sleep spam is doing wonders in the early game. Do you guys remember what triggers Tristan to get wounded in act1. I know it has to do with doing Sycamore before temple of the Elk but what specific part of the quest triggers the transition? Is i straight when you walk into the mite/kobold conflict or can you progress the sycamore quest until right before the end and go to temple of the Elk?

 

[Desiderius]

It’s if you recruit Harrim IIRC.

 

[Jermu]

summoner was not bugged I just did not understand cotw changes (3/4 leveling progression, need to pick every evolution again every level up, annoying)

soon done with sycamore some of these saves are brutal

aoe poison

also web traps can fuck off, lasts too long. I just rest every time I proc one. sadly no pass time button that wrath has

Eidolon is pretty tanky at least

still got 75 days left guess I skip sword bonus and explore everything I can don't think there was other benefit for rushing

Im not doing totally legit unfair run, Im using extra carry weight thing too lazy to browse every item every map + don't want to have 4 pets. also edited perception for mc so I don't miss locations + hidden items

 

[Yosharian]

Yeah that Centipede is brutal haha