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

[jf8350143]

I don't understand why they limit the exp reward to such an extent and didn't give any option to tweak it up. If you didn't do lots of side quest, you can go face the boss of second chapter at level 5. And high chance you will get butchered by them no matter how you play.

Are they planning to put micro-transaction in the game so people can buy exp boost buff or something? Because that's the only reason I can think of.

 

[Luckmann]

If anyone of you is doing a Stealth build, how is that working out? Is it useful to send some squish ahead of the party? Is it used in out-of-combat checks?

I'm not far, but I cannot see it working well. However, Stealth is still pretty nice just for sneaking up on enemies, and getting that first sneak attack with a ranged weapon for rogues (I have a mercenary Rogue 1/Ranger 1 with me atm) is really nice, at least on low levels.

According to a loading screen, you can also get ranged sneak attacks on flanked enemies, but I haven't noticed flanking working in the game at all. But if that can be reliably set up, that's potentially really crazy. Currently, though, at least on low levels and unless the stats evens out to be less rocket-tag-y (and from all accounts so far, that doesn't happen), I'd be hard pressed to take a Rogue into melee combat. A Thug or Knife Master/Fighter, maybe.

One thing that does annoy me somewhat is they seem to have increased the weight of mundane items.

In the tabletop a strong character can lug around everything and the kitchen sink and still be at light encumbrance. It also becomes a non issue for weaker characters if they get a handy haversack or a bag of holding.

Nevermind that I've *never* played a TT PnP where anyone bothered with the encumbrance of a "reasonable" degree of items, and where players did not beeline for the acquisition of Bags of Holding and/or (more commonly) Handy Haversacks.

Who the fuck would mount an expedition to expressly and literally conquer and settle an entire region without everyone of importance having Handy Haversacks and mules? For fucks sake, we've even got horses when traveling, apparently, but we can't use them to carry shit? In 3.5 a Donkey costs nothing and can carry pretty much everything you could reasonably want to haul back to a vendor or city.

They've stuck close to the rules, while ignoring how people most often tend to deal with said rules.

 

[fantadomat]

Are there any dragons in the game?

I believe that they are,the main quest hints at it. Still i haven't seen them,the game is huge and have some really nice big maps . Also i don't want to fight dragons,seeing how hard it was to kill a fucking bear!

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Are there any dragons in the game? I kinda want to try the Ranger and not sure if I should pick humans since that's mostly the only thing I encountered in the early game and don't have clue about the rest of the game of what's there and isn't.


If there is a dragon then I want to pick it as my favored enemy and set it as my goal or something.

humans & trolls were the two most numerous enemies I encountered

 

[Lacrymas]

So, apart from bugs, so-so writing and ridiculous difficulty settings, is there anything else wrong with the game? Like feeling unfinished after a certain point? Or the kingdom management being trivial and pointless? How big are the maps? Any branching or C&C?

And a mechanics question - can Rogues pick up Use Magic Device? One of my favorite builds is a halfling ranged Rogue that uses scrolls (like Divine Favor). Kinda cliche, but there you go. I'll probably start with a Druid on my first playthrough, though.

 

[Background Character]

I don't know if the game is hard or my skills are not up to par but I still like it

What I'm having trouble though is resisting the urge to roll a new character (I am not or ever was a reroller I have not compulsively created and leveled characters since those dark MMO days but those don't count)

I still don't know if I want to play a:
fighter sorcerer multiclass
rogue sorcerer multiclass
fighter sorcerer rogue multiclass
magus sorcerer multiclass
just pure sorcerer
and I don't even want to think about the prestige classes

 

[Kem0sabe]

Best rpg to be released this month? Valkyria Chronicles 4, yet again Japanese developers showing the west how its done.

 

[Tacgnol]

They've stuck close to the rules, while ignoring how people most often tend to deal with said rules.

Pretty much, though in the case of encumbrance they've actually gone out of their way to make it worse than the TT.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

With how flanking/sneak attack works in pathfinder, is there a reason to not grab rogue 1 on most melee/archers?

 

[Tacgnol]

With how flanking/sneak attack works in pathfinder, is there a reason to not grab rogue 1 on most melee/archers?

Yes, 1d6 sneak attack is worthless later in the game. I'd rather have multiple attacks sooner and higher attack bonuses.

Also power attack damage scaling will kick in earlier if you stick to pure martial classes.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I don't understand why they limit the exp reward to such an extent and didn't give any option to tweak it up. If you didn't do lots of side quest, you can go face the boss of second chapter at level 5. And high chance you will get butchered by them no matter how you play.

Are they planning to put micro-transaction in the game so people can buy exp boost buff or something? Because that's the only reason I can think of.

I was doing sidequests and I was getting completely crushed by the troll events, the moment your stability goes below 0 you lose. So I had to go rush and kill the boss at level 6ish before my shit got destroyed.

 

[Luckmann]

So, apart from bugs, so-so writing and ridiculous difficulty settings, is there anything else wrong with the game? Like feeling unfinished after a certain point? Or the kingdom management being trivial and pointless? How big are the maps? Any branching or C&C?

Haven't gotten that far yet, but sometimes-shitty writing, the SocJus shit, a metric ton of bugs, a shitty UI, poor feedback and a host of minor issues like that seem to be the major problems.

Apart from that, again, I'm not far, it seems pretty damn solid. I've run into multiple scenarios where choices (although self-contained as scenarios go) have felt like they've mattered, and they've taken good parts of PoE (such as scripted/CYOA events) and really run with it. If I've got one bone to pick, it's arguably that they've stuck *too* close to the rules/rules-text of Pathfinder, with little regard for the medium through which it should be interpreted (i.e., a PC game).

In some ways, it feels like a mix between BG1 and ToEE, with some NWN2 (but not the shitty parts) thrown in.

Again, I'm not far, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

So, apart from bugs, so-so writing and ridiculous difficulty settings, is there anything else wrong with the game? Like feeling unfinished after a certain point? Or the kingdom management being trivial and pointless? How big are the maps? Any branching or C&C?

Haven't gotten that far yet, but sometimes-shitty writing, the SocJus shit, a metric ton of bugs, a shitty UI, poor feedback and a host of minor issues like that seem to be the major problems.

Apart from that, again, I'm not far, it seems pretty damn solid. I've run into multiple scenarios where choices (although self-contained as scenarios go) have felt like they've mattered, and they've taken good parts of PoE (such as scripted/CYOA events) and really run with it. If I've got one bone to pick, it's arguably that they've stuck *too* close to the rules/rules-text of Pathfinder, with little regard for the medium through which it should be interpreted (i.e., a PC game).

This would describe how I view it after ~30 hours tbh. I can't continue so I guess I'll drop it for a while until it gets patched. They did a good job making sure your choices actually matter.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

So, apart from bugs, so-so writing and ridiculous difficulty settings, is there anything else wrong with the game? Like feeling unfinished after a certain point? Or the kingdom management being trivial and pointless? How big are the maps? Any branching or C&C?

And a mechanics question - can Rogues pick up Use Magic Device? One of my favorite builds is a halfling ranged Rogue that uses scrolls (like Divine Favor). Kinda cliche, but there you go. I'll probably start with a Druid on my first playthrough, though.

Kingdom management is actually well developed from my experience.

 

[Elex]

Are there any dragons in the game? I kinda want to try the Ranger and not sure if I should pick humans since that's mostly the only thing I encountered in the early game and don't have clue about the rest of the game of what's there and isn't.


If there is a dragon then I want to pick it as my favored enemy and set it as my goal or something.

appatently the worse enemy are spiders and insects.

 

[Jenkem]

is this game good yet?

 

[Luckmann]

With how flanking/sneak attack works in pathfinder, is there a reason to not grab rogue 1 on most melee/archers?

Based on my experience so far, I'd grab a level of rogue for dedicated archers, but not for melee characters. It is not just for the sneak attack, though, because 1d6 isn't huge later (but still enough to matter sometimes), but because you also get rogue class skills and skill points, and HP doesn't matter as much for ranged as it does for melee.

But if I'm primarily a melee Fighter or Paladin or Ranger, I wouldn't bother. But a ranged Ranger? Yeah, I'd take a level of rogue.

Too bad most of the archetypes are either boring or shit. One of my favorite aspects of PF.

I don't know if the game is hard or my skills are not up to par but I still like it

What I'm having trouble though is resisting the urge to roll a new character (I am not or ever was a reroller I have not compulsively created and leveled characters since those dark MMO days but those don't count)

I still don't know if I want to play a:
fighter sorcerer multiclass
rogue sorcerer multiclass
fighter sorcerer rogue multiclass
magus sorcerer multiclass
just pure sorcerer
and I don't even want to think about the prestige classes

Multiclassing is usually a terrible idea in PF, even moreso than in 3.5, and this is especially true for spellcasters unless it's a prestige class that advances your casting.

Also, the prestige class list is really sad. Most are (as with archetypes) either shit or just plain boring, and there's not even a single one geared towards thematic aspects (like how NWN2 had Shadow Thief of Amn, iirc, or that Neverwinter agent thing). That said, prestige classes are pretty shit in PF (as opposed to 3.5, where they are almost always a good deal one way or another), and with the developers sticking so close to the PF ruleset, I don't see them fixing that.

 

[Lacrymas]

Kingdom management is actually well developed from my experience.

What do you actually get from it?

 

[Tacgnol]

Multiclassing is usually a terrible idea in PF, even moreso than in 3.5, and this is especially true for spellcasters unless it's a prestige class that advances your casting.

Yep, they usually reward continued development in a single class quite well with class abilities.

None of the 3.5 prestige class spaghetti with levels spread between a million classes.

 

[Theldaran]

It's obvious, why would you advance in, for example, plain Third Edition Ranger class if the benefits were measly?

Of the glances I've taken to DnD5 PHB, I've seen that they tend to give almost a new ability each new level, that way you encourage players to stick to the class, in fact multiclassing is difficult to balance, it either sucks or produces significant advantages.

 

[Smashing Axe]

Apart from detect magic and skills, are there any spells or character abilities that are usable in dialogue?

 

[Urthor]

Wait where the fuck is the Grease spell? I can understand they can't add in all spells but wtf my grease

 

[Israfael]

The problem with spells like that is that the only work when the developers allow them to work, and if NPCs have jacked up saves, they're just completely immune and they're a total waste of effort. Explosions, on the other hand, well, as the size of the explosion increases towards infinity, the number of problems it is incapable of resolving approaches zero. I once did an LP on a D&D game, to which I basically just used MORE EXPLOSIONS as my go-to solution for EVERYTHING, boring the audience to death.

Why it has to be reliable, then you'd just spam CC at all enemies like in D:OS1 and steamroll through everything. In any case, it's the old problem of all RPGs - damage vs control. It can go wrong either way - like total CC fest in Divinity / old WoW dungeons, or total damage in NWN1/2 and basically all recent 'classic' games. That's why devs have to follow some logic / balance in setting of resistances / save rolls for the monsters / hostile NPCs that you can uncover and follow (like Wizards having low Fort save and high Will save, giants and slow creatures not appreciating Reflex saves and so on).

For example, Beast of Malar in MotB is almost impossible to kill with melee attacks (super high AC, immunity to knockdown and so on) and direct damage spells (GIMS barely scratches its fur), but you can kill it with some insta-death spells that target Will check and are touch-based (lower AC). Of course, if you don't have it,you are screwed - I've battled it with my monk for 30 minutes or so and I died.

It is not hard, but as MCA himself demonstrated, people rarely read into the game rules and try to think logically while assaying enemies and your chances of survival

 

[Tacgnol]

It's obvious, why would you advance in, for example, plain Third Edition Ranger class if the benefits were measly?

Of the glances I've taken to DnD5 PHB, I've seen that they tend to give almost a new ability each new level, that way you encourage players to stick to the class, in fact multiclassing is difficult to balance, it either sucks or produces significant advantages.

Unless you have some sort of Conan (barbarian/rogue) class fantasy in mind, multi-classing also creates some very strange inconsistent characters.

You kind of had to in 3.5 as it was the only way to keep up with the power curve, even if it felt out of character.

 

[Yosharian]

With how flanking/sneak attack works in pathfinder, is there a reason to not grab rogue 1 on most melee/archers?

It's an average of 3.5 extra damage that only applies when the target is flanked or is flat-footed. That'll happen when you're surrounding one guy, but it won't affect that mage that you're trying to take out while your frontliners are busy tanking, it won't affect targets when your frontliners are desperately trying to stop targets from running past your front line to your mage, etc. It's not reliable damage.

You also have to weigh that against the loss of growth in your base class, and the 1-pt loss of Base Attack Bonus, which reduces your chance to hit your target, especially on the harder difficulties.

It's not bad, but it's not as good as it might appear.

That said, some classes suffer less from multiclassing than others, for example a Fighter can easily multiclass without losing too much, so it's definitely an option.

If you're going to do it, consider taking the Rogue dip to 4th level. 2d6 Sneak Attack damage, Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, Rogue Talent (which can just be a combat feat if you want, via Combat Trick - if the devs have put that in the game).

Uncanny Dodge should stop you from being Sneak Attacked during the first round of combat, since you can never be flat-footed.

Also consider Accomplished Sneak Attacker, which gives you an extra 1d6 Sneak Attack damage, providing you have at least 1d6 to begin with. Again, if they put it in the game.