Pathfinder: Kingmaker

There is definitely a lot of clutter, and a lot of game elements that are downright obtuse when you first encounter them (some even after a good long while).

I am glad to see this kind of game beig made and doing well, though. I like a deep and complex RPG that you really need to do some thinking about to get to grips with. They got a fair bit wrong with this one as well as getting a lot right, I agree. There also seem to be some dead ends in the text and descriptions that make me think they had plans they weren't able to implement. From what I've seen, though, the devs have been actively engaging with the playing community and I have really high hopes for the sequel.

Despite the clunky parts and the confusion I still have after 40-odd hours over how some systems work, I am really enjoying this. Definitely liking it more than PoE II, for instance.
 
Re: Unprepared Magic Users
I find this mod very useful as you can create a lot of scrolls that can cover various scenarios, also handing for creating items. Its based on official rules which I became very familiar with in my last pen and paper campaign (and saved the party a ton of cash).
Your magic users are great at buffs and de-buffs and these are spells you should always have prepped. Any other slots can be assigned to offensive stuff.
 
Bickaxe said:
Re: Unprepared Magic Users
I find this mod very useful as you can create a lot of scrolls that can cover various scenarios, also handing for creating items. Its based on official rules which I became very familiar with in my last pen and paper campaign (and saved the party a ton of cash).
Your magic users are great at buffs and de-buffs and these are spells you should always have prepped. Any other slots can be assigned to offensive stuff.
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This is how I tend to use Octavia and Tristian - they always have bless, haste, heroism, slow, protection, etc. prepped and then usually an offensive spell or debuff for each of the higher levels slots. It does mean they both have very large spellbooks that I never use most of, though. So I acquire new spells but instantly think "yay, here's another one for 'spells I'll never actually cast' list."

On the plus side, the game does throw a metric ton of scrolls and potions at you, even without the crafting mod.

chroniclard said:
I like it best when you are wandering along a road and come across a random encounter. Fight I say! Oh........its 2 giants that one punched all my party and now I have to load an old save game.
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I had that one! Also the... oh, I've been ganked by an entire army of manticores one. And the elder air elemental I couldn't land a single hit on even using all the buffs I had at the time.

They're not too common, thankfully, and I'm now at a level I haven't met an encounter I couldn't push through for a good while. The fact that these were all pretty much in the starter part of the map though was a real, um, interesting turn of events.
 
Unfortunately I dont like the game enough to play through properly so I installed a few mods. :D

Better vendors, bag of tricks and skip intro.

Going to just steam through it all, see what happens, then uninstall. I have racked up about 20 hours already so worth the relatively cheap price.
 
Random encounters are XP farms, stealth the party straight away and get a shot or 2 in from range.

Hint for Chapter 2 (or is it 3??): Make sure you have lots of acid ready, acid splash is handy for this.
 
There are some encounters where the combat starts immediately the map loads, though. The giants one and the manticore army gank were instances of this, so stealthing in wasn't an option.

You do need acid in chapter two in quite a lot of places, that's a good tip. You find a couple of weapons that help out in that regard too, and wands.

My main head-scratcher right now is how to balance the kingdom rank-up events with the time limits of quests. I have one more rank up available, but I have a companion quest hanging and a main quest timer getting to the point I expect things to start happening as well. I may have spent too much time wandering around the map this chapter. Travel times and the need for rest are quite punishing.
 
At this rate it's looking like this is gonna be one I come back to and actually play in a year or two. I had a bout of loving CRPGs again earlier in the year but I think it passed and I need to wait for the next time I rediscover my love for them
 
Bickaxe said:
Re: Unprepared Magic Users
I find this mod very useful as you can create a lot of scrolls that can cover various scenarios, also handing for creating items. Its based on official rules which I became very familiar with in my last pen and paper campaign (and saved the party a ton of cash).
Your magic users are great at buffs and de-buffs and these are spells you should always have prepped. Any other slots can be assigned to offensive stuff.
Click to expand...

I also used this mod in my game too. You can use it to make some useful gear without even having to taken the actual specific feats if I remember correctly, like basic healing potions and keen weapons etc, but yeah, taking the feats allows for some special stuff to be made Crafting items was included in one of my other favourite crpgs Temple of Elemental Evil, which I think is based on the same D&D ruleset as Pathfinder. ToEE was a seriously under publicised game, playing it before Pathfinder I think actually helped me get to grips with Pathfinder in a lot of respects. I heartily recommend ToEE to anyone who is in to crpgs, the music is also awesome I that game.
 
I was confused by the design choices of the wizard too, if you are after a pure magic build just go sorcerer. Have another party member designed for buffs and one for healing, aka your typical fantasy party.

Make sure you have a cold iron weapon in your backpack at all times. If you come across something that won't die but is prone you can try coup de grace too.

Save before every fight as a matter of strategy will change them from being complete wipes to easy steam rolling.

Get mage towers in your kingdom asap, very good for cutting down travel time due to the teleportation.

I'm 100 hours in and I just discovered you can metamagic spells through your spellbook if you have taken the feat, lol.
 
My main character is an Eldritch Scion, which is fine if sometimes lacking in AC without buffs.

I use Octavia as my magic user, but I think I need to rethink my strategy with her. I have bascially been using her as a buffbot/deffuer (haste, slow, enlarge, web, invisibility, etc.) But I also have Tristian and Linzi throwing out buffs so that's probably not optimal.

I see people praising her massive damage output, but I've found her spells a bit underwhelming. Fireaball doesn't do much damage, and then there're the rays but with only a few uses per day she's not going to be up there dps wise. Not really sure how to use her.
 
strumpusplunket said:
My main character is an Eldritch Scion, which is fine if sometimes lacking in AC without buffs.

I use Octavia as my magic user, but I think I need to rethink my strategy with her. I have bascially been using her as a buffbot/deffuer (haste, slow, enlarge, web, invisibility, etc.) But I also have Tristian and Linzi throwing out buffs so that's probably not optimal.

I see people praising her massive damage output, but I've found her spells a bit underwhelming. Fireaball doesn't do much damage, and then there're the rays but with only a few uses per day she's not going to be up there dps wise. Not really sure how to use her.
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Turn Octavia into an Arcane Trickster with “ray” spells as her weapon focus. She has a few base ( zero ) level cantrips that count as ray attacks if you don’t want to waste her more potent higher level offensive spells on trash mobs. Arcane tricksters, being part rogue class, gain sneak attack damage which is additive to the spell damage. Both spell and sneak damage increase with levels ... so later on in the game she starts to become a very potent damage dealer.
 
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xaldub said:
Turn Octavia into an Arcane Trickster with “ray” spells as her weapon focus. She has a few base ( zero ) level cantrips that count as ray attacks if you don’t want to waste her more potent higher level offensive spells on trash mobs. Arcane tricksters, being part rogue class, gain sneak attack damage which is additive to the spell damage. Both spell and sneak damage increases with levels ... so later on in the game she starts to become a very potent damage dealer.
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Huh, sneak damage with ray spells? Now that's interesting!

I'm still not sure how sneak damage works, really. I would have imagined it only worked when coming out of stealth, but I keep seeing sneak attack bonuses coming up mid-battle too. I may have to look this up.

I didn't know there were any ray cantrips either. I had been making her use a crossbow most of the time, unless something needed an acid splash.

Definitiely needs work, as she's pretty much a spare wheel as it stands.

Okay, thanks for the tips. I will try repeccing her tonight and using some different tactics.
 
Sneak damage occurs when the character is flanking or the target is denied its DEX bonus (such as a surprise attack).

Having 2 rogues attack 1 target is therefore very effective.

Flanking in this game counts as 2 allies attacking 1enemy on any side. In the official rulebook, its when they are on opposing sides of the target.
 
strumpusplunket said:
Huh, sneak damage with ray spells? Now that's interesting!

I'm still not sure how sneak damage works, really. I would have imagined it only worked when coming out of stealth, but I keep seeing sneak attack bonuses coming up mid-battle too. I may have to look this up.

I didn't know there were any ray cantrips either. I had been making her use a crossbow most of the time, unless something needed an acid splash.

Definitiely needs work, as she's pretty much a spare wheel as it stands.

Okay, thanks for the tips. I will try repeccing her tonight and using some different tactics.
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Sneak attacks work in a very similar fashion to outflanking opponents in melee. I think the first attack in most circumstances counts as a sneak attack, thereafter the opponent has to be engaged in melee combat with others ie. they are distracted. Also, Arcane Tricksters at higher levels gain a feat which allows them to make any attack a sneak attack , but can only be used a limited number times of day ( increases with level ).
 
Ah, that explains why it pops up in combat then!

Cheers! :)

I hadn't really bothered optimising becasue at level 10 I hadn't had any particularly tough fights for a while. Then I went to the baneful bog and found two enemies who repeatedly just chop through everyone in a coupe of hits. Tried three times, but couldn't stop them; could only slow them down until the inevitable chopping. I will see if an optimised Octavia can make the difference.

Another thing I'm wondering... I am now level 10 with less than 50 hours in game. I hear the game is 150 hours long and most people finish at level 17 or 18? That is a big slowdown in levelling coming up for the rest of the game, unless this is different in the latest edition?
 
You can rush through the game a lot quicker than 150 hours. I think my first playthrough was about 100 hours.
Since then, I have picked up the expansions so there is more XP to gain along the way so it is possible to hit level 20.

I tend to look to do quests in 1 area all at the same time to save a lot of travelling, although some of these require certain companions.
Also, the crafting mod (if you have it) makes more progress when you are not travelling so I could happily spend 2 weeks resolving a kingdom event and possibly have a new item or 2 at the end of it.

The gap for XP increases by quite a bit as you hit the higher levels.
 
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