Pathfinder: Kingmaker

Kriptini · May 13, 2019

sukik said:
I watched a little bit of Cohh's play through. Enough to convince me this is something I want to play. Is it worth picking up the DLC right away or is it something that should be done after the main game?

Get the Varnhold's Lot DLC right away and play it before the main campaign. It serves as a nice little preview of the game's events without any major spoilers and will allow you to try out a build around the middle levels before you commit to it for your main campaign. Depending on what you do in the Varnhold's Lot scenario, it may also have impact on what happens in the main campaign...

Apostolos said:
I finally picked this up after reading about it off and on for a while. I think I just spent about 3 or 4 hours reading build discussions in various places. I am still confused on a few things though. For example, I thought I would go ahead and make a rogue to see what some people were saying about the ranged sneak attack dmg, but I never could figure out how to spec into anything better than a shortbow. Granted.. I have spent those 3-4 hours at level 1 just reading and looking at the level up screens to get a feel for different builds. In my case, should you skip the rogue talent of 'weapon focus' at lvl 2 so you don't waste it on a shittier weapon? Shortbow was the only option as Longbow was red under the 'unavailable' options and compound bow was not even listed anywhere. Character is human (not sure I wanted to do an elf just for unlocking it) so was not sure how to unlock it and my google fu is not good enough to figure this one out. I figured you had to somehow pick martial weapons or something but not seeing where to even do that, and it seems you cannot NOT pick something during the level up process so as to come back and fill it later with a better choice. Anyway..its late, all these builds are making mah head hurt lol

The vast majority of your damage is coming from your sneak attack dice so longbow proficiency really doesn't make a difference - light crossbow, heavy crossbow, or shortbow will be your weapons of choice. Just make sure you take the feats Point-Blank Shot at level 1 and Precise Shot at level 2 or you will never be able to hit enemies that are in melee with your front line.

Harshaw · May 13, 2019

Gavinmad said:
god i havent played DnD/Pathfinder in ages, but iirc longbow is a martial weapon and rogues don't get martial weapon proficiency. I don't think compound bows even exist, but would be either martial or exotic if they do. I don't think you really need a longbow since the improvement over shortbow is mostly irrelevant (d8 instead of d6, increased range doesn't matter because you have to be within 30 feet) and most of your damage comes from your sneak dice.

You need the Martial Weapons Proficiency to use Longbow as a rogue. Long bow does 1d8 over the 1d6 for short. Make sure you use composite bows when you can as they allow you to add your strength damage to your damage rolls.

Kriptini · May 13, 2019

A composite bow isn't going to matter for a Rogue until way later in the game when you're swimming in Strength enhancement bonuses from magical gear, and even then, you'll only get a +1 or +2 to damage (assuming an ability score of 7 STR base and a +6 or +8 STR belt).

j00t · May 13, 2019

elves get longbow proficiency, i just made an elf rogue, gave her a longbow and she's doing JUUUUUST fine. sneak attack damage is REDICULOUS in this game. the frontline is there SPECIFICALLY to give the rogue sneak attack. they do so little damage compared to her

TJT · May 13, 2019

I won't be using no sneak attack ranged howitzers but I will be including a knife rogue. Kineticist (Psychokineticist + Trad Monk) is a pretty interesting build and the class itself is pretty cool. Low level now and kind of helpful but I can see where the composite psi blasts will just wreck later.

Concept is you are Kineticist, psycho subclass means that your burn (1 burn = -HP that can't be healed until rest) is instead a burn on your wills. The regular kineticist is a kind of burnout character that I do find pretty cool in theory. So in build Dex/Wis for this and dip Trad Monk for the permanent +4 wills bonus which will negate burn.

That said, I do not like pathfinder's tolerance of dipping. 1 level dip into this or that is pretty dumb to me even when the min max advantages of it are clear.

slippery · May 13, 2019

TJT said:
I won't be using no sneak attack ranged howitzers but I will be including a knife rogue. Kineticist (Psychokineticist + Trad Monk) is a pretty interesting build and the class itself is pretty cool. Low level now and kind of helpful but I can see where the composite psi blasts will just wreck later.

Concept is you are Kineticist, psycho subclass means that your burn (1 burn = -HP that can't be healed until rest) is instead a burn on your wills. The regular kineticist is a kind of burnout character that I do find pretty cool in theory. So in build Dex/Wis for this and dip Trad Monk for the permanent +4 wills bonus which will negate burn.

That said, I do not like pathfinder's tolerance of dipping. 1 level dip into this or that is pretty dumb to me even when the min max advantages of it are clear.

I also dislike the 1 level dip stuff that is prevalent, the gain from 1 level dips in certain classes is just too much. I still won't do it though, I like playing pure classes.

bytes · May 13, 2019

Kriptini said:
The vast majority of your damage is coming from your sneak attack dice so longbow proficiency really doesn't make a difference - light crossbow, heavy crossbow, or shortbow will be your weapons of choice. Just make sure you take the feats Point-Blank Shot at level 1 and Precise Shot at level 2 or you will never be able to hit enemies that are in melee with your front line.

Wasn't there a bit of an issue with these traits, where they only activate at a range of 30 feet or closer but your guys would start shooting from further afar? So you had to manually move them up everytime and still had no idea how close you were really.

TJT · May 13, 2019

slippery said:
I also dislike the 1 level dip stuff that is prevalent, the gain from 1 level dips in certain classes is just too much. I still won't do it though, I like playing pure classes.

I've played a significant amount of tabletop Pathfinder and Forgotten Realms. Pathfinder's overall design seems to just lean way more to it as level one bonuses can be considerably more powerful/useful. I like Prestige Classes/Dual Classes/Multi Classes but dipping is just weird because its so often against the overall build you are doing even though the bonus for it is really strong.

I'll do it this game just because it will make the kineticist much more effective. Strangely in Pathfinder my favorite absurd multi-class of Sword Saint (Kensai)/Wizard is totally lackluster compared to its Forgotten Realms equivalent.

Vorph · May 13, 2019

Did they ever fix enemies having ridiculous stats compared to pnp even on normal difficulty? IIRC the only way to get a remote approximation of what they should be like was to play on Easy (or some combination of custom settings that I never quite figured out what was best... instead I just shelved the game due to that and all the other bugs).

TJT · May 13, 2019

Vorph said:
Did they ever fix enemies having ridiculous stats compared to pnp even on normal difficulty? IIRC the only way to get a remote approximation of what they should be like was to play on Easy (or some combination of custom settings that I never quite figured out what was best... instead I just shelved the game due to that and all the other bugs).

I'm playing it on Challenging right now and it does seem a lot more manageable than it was previously.

Kriptini · May 13, 2019

bytes said:
Wasn't there a bit of an issue with these traits, where they only activate at a range of 30 feet or closer but your guys would start shooting from further afar? So you had to manually move them up everytime and still had no idea how close you were really.

Precise Shot works from any range. PBS only gives you a +1 to hit if you are 30 feet away or closer, but it's never been an issue for me because I generally keep my formations pretty tight for casting buffs/heals during combat or addressing flankers.

j00t · May 14, 2019

Kriptini said:
Precise Shot works from any range. PBS only gives you a +1 to hit if you are 30 feet away or closer, but it's never been an issue for me because I generally keep my formations pretty tight for casting buffs/heals during combat or addressing flankers.

i don't exacts, but i thought PBS just reversed the negatives for attacking with ranged in a close distance. so you wouldn't get a BONUS to shooting that close, you'd just be at the same overall to hit that you would be if you were outside close range.

i never played PnP pathfinder, i just know there's TONS of +'s and -'s that have to be accounted for with every attack and i assumed that shooting in close range was one of them. meaning PBS just means you don't need to worry about how far away you are. but i don't actually know for sure one way or another

edit: oh... i guess PBS adds to damage as well... i don't know if i ever noticed that in kingmaker...

Lasch · May 14, 2019

I just got this game and started playing.

Is my fighter ever going to lose his backpack? I saw an option to turn off class specific gear, but it doesn't appear to do much.

TJT · May 14, 2019

Lasch said:
I just got this game and started playing.

Is my fighter ever going to lose his backpack? I saw an option to turn off class specific gear, but it doesn't appear to do much.

No you need to use a mod for it.

Erronius · May 14, 2019

I'm def not familiar with pathfinder rules. Kept wondering how in the hell I couldn't get access to healing with clerics. Even made a new cleric character from scratch, paid the in-game 2K (@ 2nd level), and THEN was so irritated that I went Googling and discovered how you convert spells into healing.

Fuck.

The other thing I wasn't a fan of, is how it doesn't give you a clear and easy up front option to create your entire party from scratch. Having to edit in the gold is just...meh, I guess. Or use some sort of Mod. Or don't actually level to 2 and stay lvl 1 until after Oleg, then buy x4 new chars at 500 each?

Just seemed...weird.

j00t · May 14, 2019

yeah, i was a little frustrated with the party options in that regard. the story is really built on having the premade npc's instead of hiring mercenaries... but the party options are really pretty limited to a very specific "good" team and a very specific "evil" team. on top of that, by the time you get some of those characters, they are built a very specific way that you can't really get away from without seriously nerfing that character. BUT each premade npc is better (stat-wise) than any mercenary you hire. it's a little meh

Kriptini · May 14, 2019

j00t said:
i don't exacts, but i thought PBS just reversed the negatives for attacking with ranged in a close distance. so you wouldn't get a BONUS to shooting that close, you'd just be at the same overall to hit that you would be if you were outside close range.

There is no penalty for attacking at a close range with a ranged weapon in Pathfinder. There is a -4 penalty for using a ranged weapon to attack an opponent engaged in melee, but Precise Shot removes that penalty, which is why it's so important (for both archers AND arcane casters, there are many excellent arcane spells that are "ranged touch attacks," affected by both Point Blank and Precise shot!)

TJT · May 15, 2019

Erronius said:
I'm def not familiar with pathfinder rules. Kept wondering how in the hell I couldn't get access to healing with clerics. Even made a new cleric character from scratch, paid the in-game 2K (@ 2nd level), and THEN was so irritated that I went Googling and discovered how you convert spells into healing.

Fuck.

The other thing I wasn't a fan of, is how it doesn't give you a clear and easy up front option to create your entire party from scratch. Having to edit in the gold is just...meh, I guess. Or use some sort of Mod. Or don't actually level to 2 and stay lvl 1 until after Oleg, then buy x4 new chars at 500 each?

Just seemed...weird.

Use the respec mod that allows you to respec the NPCs. Which I do recommend because their stories are generally very well written. It still needs gold though because it is just using the in game respec system. However one of the main gripes of the first 10 or so hours on a first playthrough is that the only Cleric you have access too is Harrim. Who's weird shit as a Priest of Groetus keeps the better healing shit away from him and you can't even respec out of it. Which is why its a big boon to just level him straight into druid. I feel that that undermines the character though but... whatever.

Another NPC you get is a priest of the god of light or healing or some shit and has tons of really good healing shit. He is a faggot though.

I really really recommend NOT creating your own party from scratch on a first playthrough.

Kriptini · May 16, 2019

Harrim isn't bad, his domain spells are just mostly garbage. With a high enough WIS modifier, the ring that gives extra channel energy uses, and maybe taking the Extra Channel feat 1-2 times, he can become a great healer. (And his ability to fight in melee means you can give him Outflank.)

Erronius · May 16, 2019

Probably my biggest challenge with the system is that I wont bother researching the system before I play it, it will take a while to get a good grasp on it, and it's a race to see whether I learn it or get bored first

Pathfinder: Kingmaker

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