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

[Van-d-all]

And then in addition to that, this game implemented you don't even need Greater Invisibility to sneak attack most of the time.

If it wasn't for the text adventures, you wouldn't even need stealth at all. I used it for a while, but quite fast I realized it's just BG nostalgia, and I can just take the enemies head on.

It's not tactically useful to have your back line start fights in stealth?

Not really. Whats the point if the AI aggros nearest char and SA is applied to every enemy attacked by 2+ characters. Occasionally archers are a bit less retarded since they have a larger attack radius, but nothing significant.

 

[Cael]

So one dip in rogue is recomended for everybody?

Vivisecionist over Rogue.

Rogue does provide free Weapon Finesse though, it can be in some cases preferable to Mutagen.

I can see that, and I do agree with you to a large extent. I am just not convinced that a Dex build is not a trap unless you are building a ranged physical attacker (e.g., archer). Strength automatically gives a bonus to-hit and to damage plus carrying capacity. Dex, on the other hand, requires one more feat to just match what Strength does.

 

[Van-d-all]

So one dip in rogue is recomended for everybody?

Vivisecionist over Rogue.

Rogue does provide free Weapon Finesse though, it can be in some cases preferable to Mutagen.

With 11+ INT vivies get a free True Strikes though.

 

[Chippy]

Minor buggyness with Ranger bear familiar - I picked boon companion at level 5 and the bear went from level 2 to 5, then 6, but has now stayed at 6 as I leveled to 7. It still got all all the level up stats and attributes though...I think.

C'mon Owlcat;- I thought you would have paid special attention to the bears.

Are you sure this is a bug? Companions lose 4 levels total by level 20. the first is lost at 7 or 8 I am pretty sure its 7. Animal companions do not hit 20 and are not meant to. A Ranger without boon winds up at 14 I believe.

That's interesting - didn't know that - so assume the animal companion is treated as being left behind like the other party members a level behind?.

Minor buggyness with Ranger bear familiar - I picked boon companion at level 5 and the bear went from level 2 to 5, then 6, but has now stayed at 6 as I leveled to 7. It still got all all the level up stats and attributes though...I think.

C'mon Owlcat;- I thought you would have paid special attention to the bears.

Are you sure this is a bug? Companions lose 4 levels total by level 20. the first is lost at 7 or 8 I am pretty sure its 7. Animal companions do not hit 20 and are not meant to. A Ranger without boon winds up at 14 I believe.

Ranger animal companion functions as Druid level -3.

Yep, but look at Wakandayu (whatever his name is) and he has boon companion - for me that means he is the same as my ranger character: level 7, animal companion level 6 and with the large attribute.

So if everything is working as intended, I'm assuming that the description refers to the Ranger getting to level 7 to give their companion the large attribute, and the game levels companions -1 level below the PC at level 7...

 

[Israfael]

an extra +1

It's not extra +1, it's +4 thanks to the two SP feats and other wizard stuff you miss by picking 3 levels of rogue. And even +1 is significant - stats and rolls scale non-linearly, which is especially important considering that your resources for extra rolls (as in spells) are limited.

 

[hell bovine]

So one dip in rogue is recomended for everybody?

Sneak attack should definitely be toned down and is ridiculous. But personally I wouldn't delay spellcaster progression for it, because I find disabling spells more valuable. Leveling isn't fast in Pathfinder, so getting that level X spell earlier makes a difference. E.g. getting vine trap for my druid, because a vine trapped owlbear/treant/whatever the name is a helpless one. Stinking cloud makes a certain place a breeze, because it ko's all wisps, which is why I'd prefer that Octavia was a pure wizard.

 

[Shadenuat]

So one dip in rogue is recomended for everybody?

+2d6 is super early game, but can get eaten up by DR later game completely, because of how game rolls damage (unless you have a weapon or weapon buff for every enemy, although I did not test it - just some dude did).

Still running Valerie without 1 dip into Vivisectionist early game is so insufferable even I do it, even if I plan going some other class.

 

[ArchAngel]

Three levels would equal at most to 15% difference for breaking spell resistance. Furthermore even at higher levels spell resistance is usually not omnipresent. Ergo hardly a deal breaker. Level 15 means just barely getting one level 8 slot, two as specialist. Nice but hardly compensates for the idiotic damage bonus from SA unless you want to play CC machine/buff bot which is a viable alternative but besides the point. As I have shown applying metamagic feats make Scorching Ray already better than many other higher level damage spells and that is without SA. Triple SA would break the damage balance so hard that only braindead retards would advocate for it.
And again the rules make it clear that multiple instances of SA apply to full round attacks only. No spell attack is a full round action in addition to all the other stuff I mentioned. Summa summarum, still no argument to give Scorching Ray and Hellfire Ray three times SA.
Feel free to continue with your pointless rationalizations though.

10% difference because you would lose 3 caster levels compared to 1 you lose now. SR is on almost every high level enemy that is any danger. You get 2 castings of that spell of lvl 8 because you got Bond Object and that can restore one spell of any level. Also everyone plays a specialist mage or even a Thassilonian specialist.
And you are ignoring that fire resistance/immunity is most common trait, especially at high levels and you would be lagging 3 levels behind and that makes Hellfire Ray something you would get much later.

You sound like one of those people that makes a character for a campaign that starts at lvl 1 based on how good it is going to be at lvl 20. D&D/Pathfinder does not work like that, and neither does this game.

Also show me these rules that prevent SA with each of Scorching Rays? I checked the spell, it has no such limitations while Manyshot says in description that you can only apply precision type damage once.

You are the one doing baseless assumptions and it seems you are not even that familiar with base rules. Did you even play tabletop at any point?

 

[Sykar]

So one dip in rogue is recomended for everybody?

Sneak attack should definitely be toned down and is ridiculous. But personally I wouldn't delay spellcaster progression for it, because I find disabling spells more valuable. Leveling isn't fast in Pathfinder, so getting that level X spell earlier makes a difference. E.g. getting vine trap for my druid, because a vine trapped owlbear/treant/whatever the name is a helpless one. Stinking cloud makes a certain place a breeze, because it ko's all wisps, which is why I'd prefer that Octavia was a pure wizard.

Depends on what you want. An Evoker/AT will probably be the highest damaging wizard variant bar none regardless how buggy SA is atm.

Three levels would equal at most to 15% difference for breaking spell resistance. Furthermore even at higher levels spell resistance is usually not omnipresent. Ergo hardly a deal breaker. Level 15 means just barely getting one level 8 slot, two as specialist. Nice but hardly compensates for the idiotic damage bonus from SA unless you want to play CC machine/buff bot which is a viable alternative but besides the point. As I have shown applying metamagic feats make Scorching Ray already better than many other higher level damage spells and that is without SA. Triple SA would break the damage balance so hard that only braindead retards would advocate for it.
And again the rules make it clear that multiple instances of SA apply to full round attacks only. No spell attack is a full round action in addition to all the other stuff I mentioned. Summa summarum, still no argument to give Scorching Ray and Hellfire Ray three times SA.
Feel free to continue with your pointless rationalizations though.

10% difference because you would lose 3 caster levels compared to 1 you lose now. SR is on almost every high level enemy that is any danger. You get 2 castings of that spell of lvl 8 because you got Bond Object and that can restore one spell of any level. Also everyone plays a specialist mage or even a Thassilonian specialist.
And you are ignoring that fire resistance/immunity is most common trait, especially at high levels and you would be lagging 3 levels behind and that makes Hellfire Ray something you would get much later.

You sound like one of those people that makes a character for a campaign that starts at lvl 1 based on how good it is going to be at lvl 20. D&D/Pathfinder does not work like that, and neither does this game.

Also show me these rules that prevent SA with each of Scorching Rays? I checked the spell, it has no such limitations while Manyshot says in description that you can only apply precision type damage once.

You are the one doing baseless assumptions and it seems you are not even that familiar with base rules. Did you even play tabletop at any point?

I was comparing the 3 level dipped AT to a pure caster, not to a 1 level dipped AT to a 3 level dipped AT. Thanks for undermining your own pitiful argument.
As t Thessalonian specialist that is hardly a compelling argument considering that almost no one plays it in the game at the moment. Bound Object makes you lose your familiar which means a lot lower initiative or whatever bonus you choose. Worthwhile under certain circumstances but not necessarily so. Regardless of exact variant it changes nothing as to how SA completely undermines spell balance which as I have proven is already sketchy. At best.
You sound like one of those brain dead retards who once they fail to make compelling arguments they just adhere to ad hominems.
As to Scorching Ray it is explicitly used in Complete Arcana how SA is applied to spells.

 

[Shadenuat]

You are ignoring that fire resistance/immunity is most common trait, especially at high levels

You're not Cael

This game has about 2 bosses who are fire immune and 1 early enemy in act 2, that is it. Endgame enemies have fire 10 (which is nothing) and immunity to Cold.

So feel free to roll a full fire blaster and burn everything. I did on Hard and trivialized most fights starting Wizard level 5.

 

[hell bovine]

So one dip in rogue is recomended for everybody?

Sneak attack should definitely be toned down and is ridiculous. But personally I wouldn't delay spellcaster progression for it, because I find disabling spells more valuable. Leveling isn't fast in Pathfinder, so getting that level X spell earlier makes a difference. E.g. getting vine trap for my druid, because a vine trapped owlbear/treant/whatever the name is a helpless one. Stinking cloud makes a certain place a breeze, because it ko's all wisps, which is why I'd prefer that Octavia was a pure wizard.

Depends on what you want. An Evoker/AT will probably be the highest damaging wizard variant bar none regardless how buggy SA is atm.

That's the thing: it's not just damage. Pathfinder has an open access map and you can run into some really tough enemies by accident; case in point some enraged owlbears hiding in the bushes that my party found early into chapter two. It was not Octavia's sneak attack that stopped the party from becoming dinner, but her slow & Tristian's hold spell.

 

[Yosharian]

an extra +1

It's not extra +1, it's +4 thanks to the two SP feats and other wizard stuff you miss by picking 3 levels of rogue. And even +1 is significant - stats and rolls scale non-linearly, which is especially important considering that your resources for extra rolls (as in spells) are limited.

You don't seem to have understood my post. Here, let me bold the important part:

A correctly-built AT only loses one spellcasting level.

And no, losing 1 caster level doesn't make your ability to pierce SR significantly worse.

 

[Haplo]

So one dip in rogue is recomended for everybody?

Vivisecionist over Rogue.

Rogue does provide free Weapon Finesse though, it can be in some cases preferable to Mutagen.

With 11+ INT vivies get a free True Strikes though.

And/or Shield.

 

[Yosharian]

And then in addition to that, this game implemented you don't even need Greater Invisibility to sneak attack most of the time.

If it wasn't for the text adventures, you wouldn't even need stealth at all. I used it for a while, but quite fast I realized it's just BG nostalgia, and I can just take the enemies head on.

It's not tactically useful to have your back line start fights in stealth?

Not really. Whats the point if the AI aggros nearest char and SA is applied to every enemy attacked by 2+ characters. Occasionally archers are a bit less retarded since they have a larger attack radius, but nothing significant.

Hmmm.

 

[Cael]

You are ignoring that fire resistance/immunity is most common trait, especially at high levels

You're not Cael

This game has about 2 bosses who are fire immune and 1 early enemy in act 2, that is it. Endgame enemies have fire 10 (which is nothing) and immunity to Cold.

So feel free to roll a full fire blaster and burn everything. I did on Hard and trivialized most fights starting Wizard level 5.

Only two? That is pitiful. At least NWN has entire TYPES of enemies completely immune to fire. Or cold. Or electricity. Or...

 

[Sykar]

So one dip in rogue is recomended for everybody?

Sneak attack should definitely be toned down and is ridiculous. But personally I wouldn't delay spellcaster progression for it, because I find disabling spells more valuable. Leveling isn't fast in Pathfinder, so getting that level X spell earlier makes a difference. E.g. getting vine trap for my druid, because a vine trapped owlbear/treant/whatever the name is a helpless one. Stinking cloud makes a certain place a breeze, because it ko's all wisps, which is why I'd prefer that Octavia was a pure wizard.

Depends on what you want. An Evoker/AT will probably be the highest damaging wizard variant bar none regardless how buggy SA is atm.

That's the thing: it's not just damage. Pathfinder has an open access map and you can run into some really tough enemies by accident; case in point some enraged owlbears hiding in the bushes that my party found early into chapter two. It was not Octavia's sneak attack that stopped the party from becoming dinner, but her slow & Tristian's hold spell.

Unless you can flee from combat slow and hold won't kill them or deal damage. Any smart AT will of course utilize other spells to complement the party and their attack spells.

 

[filpan]

One noob question, I still havent tried the game. As a mage (wizard), do you find/buy spells and write them in your spellbook (a la Baldur's Gate), or do you get them by leveling up?

 

[hell bovine]

Unless you can flee from combat slow and hold won't kill them or deal damage. Any smart AT will of course utilize other spells to complement the party and their attack spells.

Slow and hold prevent them from mauling your party, though. You can always try to summon spam in order to get your flanking, but at the level my party was, not even my druid's boar and Valerie could tank the three of them at the same time. And you need to flank to land sneak attacks.

 

[Parabalus]

One noob question, I still havent tried the game. As a mage (wizard), do you find/buy spells and write them in your spellbook (a la Baldur's Gate), or do you get them by leveling up?

Both, but scrolls are really scarce, especially high level ones.

 

[Van-d-all]

One noob question, I still havent tried the game. As a mage (wizard), do you find/buy spells and write them in your spellbook (a la Baldur's Gate), or do you get them by leveling up?

As INT based, arcane spellcaster, Both. CHA based, only get them per level.

 

[filpan]

Thanks. I guess high level scrolls are rare as in BG II? When I came to that wizard shop in Saradush in ToB, I felt like a kid in a toy store, with most of high level scrolls in one place.

 

[Van-d-all]

Thanks. I guess high level scrolls are rare as in BG II? When I came to that wizard shop in Saradush in ToB, I felt like a kid in a toy store, with most of high level scrolls in one place.

The problem mainly lies, in fact there aren't many civilized hubs in the game so number of vendors is pretty limited and distribution of loot is quite weird.

 

[Riel]

So one dip in rogue is recomended for everybody?

Vivisecionist over Rogue.

Rogue does provide free Weapon Finesse though, it can be in some cases preferable to Mutagen.

I can see that, and I do agree with you to a large extent. I am just not convinced that a Dex build is not a trap unless you are building a ranged physical attacker (e.g., archer). Strength automatically gives a bonus to-hit and to damage plus carrying capacity. Dex, on the other hand, requires one more feat to just match what Strength does.

You can also do a Knife Master 1, Wiz 3, A. Trickster X. I just dumped strength since most damage is going to come from spells and sneak attack anyway, the 8 sided sneak dices overcome my puny strength damage modifier by the mid levels, as an arcane trickster I don't care for 1 alchemist spell slot for shield / true strike and oh yes, I forget bow, two handed weapons ofc to trigger sneak attack as much as possible while spells are used mostly for disables and self protection in the front lines, you are pretty sustainable with mage armor and shield pretty early, and later you are just untouchable as long as you maintain your prots up, and of course you can always open a fight with nice AOE SA. This build requires DEX and INT, there's no room for strength no matter how nice it would be, not enough points.

For this case I think Rogue Knife Master >>> Vivisectionst.

 

[Israfael]

This game has about 2 bosses who are fire immune and 1 early enemy in act 2, that is it. Endgame enemies have fire 10 (which is nothing) and immunity to Cold.

Are you sure? Irovetti's pet, the thing in the dungeon, this 27 lvl sorcerer and many other mobs I met were completely immune to fire and most of mind-affecting spells

 

[Israfael]

One noob question, I still havent tried the game. As a mage (wizard), do you find/buy spells and write them in your spellbook (a la Baldur's Gate), or do you get them by leveling up?

Both, but before 1.1 (and even in beta) both dedicated wizard traders were bugged (Bartholomew and purported mage in Pithax). Your only chance to snag high-level scrolls would be at Irovetti's tourno, where that trader is actually interactable