Pathfinder: Kingmaker

[Crice]

Once again my Kingdom is going to crap. I get hit with so many problems I don't have enough advisers to handle it all. It always seems to be around level 8. This time I was able to get 3 more areas to control but that doesn't matter because you don't have enough days to explore it all. I decided that when the kingdom died I would try making it invincible. This just delays the overall Kingdoms death by a month from what I can tell and the stats don't matter if the people are going to riot. The curse still comes like a nuclear bomb. 

Well F it... I am going to explore as much as I can. I traveled as far as I could and hit ever new story line that came up as a glowing ? What can I say? The story line in the other regions just gets better IMO. I fought 2 Golems that of course are immune to fire, electricity and etc. I had my fighter, barbarian and monk jinsei or whatever. The monk uses martial arts and hits fast. He isn't too bad but not as good as amiri that I left behind for this Monk. My fighter is a tank with full Adimantiam (sp?) armor, named shield and +2 rings of protection. He has some other goodies like his weapon but w/e. Back to the golem story, Monk was beaten to a pulp, my barbarian died next and then my tank. The golems finished off the sorc, healer and wiz. My bad for running around tired just trying to see stuff before the end comes... I will prop try webbing the golems but I may need another healer and to dump that monk for Amiri.

[Dharus]

I considered an all evil alignment crew. Why not let the Trolls live and make them allies? Hmmm?

I'm finding the evil alignment gives a few interesting options but nothing earth shattering.  I may have to restart again and give it another go because I messed up my mercs.  Its problematic with the storyline characters because you usually go against their wishes but I haven't seen any major consequences to that.

The part where that hurts is in running the kingdom. It is skewed towards good. Running the Kingdom on the evil side is going to be harder.

Ya, that's what I'm getting at.  You are almost forced to make good choices.  I was doing well though as LE before I restarted.  I had to make sure there were neutrals as advisors.

You can run Evil but you will have to take a different set of Advisors. 

1. You need the advisor from the Brivoy delegation no Swordlords guy. Even that Spoiled Kid is Neutral. 
2. Ros and the Economy advisor are chaotic. 
3. The Curio guy most certainly is Evil. 

It is the religious choices that gets tough. 

So it is doable, you just have to chose wisely.

I used the story dwarf for religion and shunned the good priests (also looted the temple).  Also noticed that your alignment affects buildings so I had notice boards and another punishment building giving bonuses to negative event rolls. It was probably why I had not had problems.

I'm working on my second evil group now.  It's really tempting to murder the story characters... I saved Octavia (who is underrated as an arcane trickster) and the orc just for the orc advisor.  The priest at the temple might die though...

[Zouji]

The real question Dhar is, "Can you form Commie China?".

[Dharus]

The real question Dhar is, "Can you form Commie China?".

Would an undead kingdom be considered communist?  Kobolds, goblins, trolls living together in fear of being re-educated?  Yes, Dhar is.

[Crice]

So where we at? Anyone get past level 8?

[Vllad]

I am level 10 or 11.

I actually survived the negative stability hits. Some timely buildings and I didn't fall. I am constantly on the brink since I am around zero stability constantly. The first 3 chapters basically put some timers on them to blow up your kingdom. I wish I would have gotten at least some chance to be able to sit back and adventure or work on the kingdom. Their is really zero time.

That mission to the Fey world kicked my ass. The Fey world showed me the one weakness of running all Barbarians.

[Dharus]

I am level 10 or 11.

I actually survived the negative stability hits. Some timely buildings and I didn't fall. I am constantly on the brink since I am around zero stability constantly. The first 3 chapters basically put some timers on them to blow up your kingdom. I wish I would have gotten at least some chance to be able to sit back and adventure or work on the kingdom. Their is really zero time.

That mission to the Fey world kicked my ass. The Fey world showed me the one weakness of running all Barbarians.

Will save... will save... will save...

I'm enjoying the game.  Definitely more than 40hrs of gameplay worth.

[Crice]

HAHA! Yes definitely more than 40 hours of game play. Well now I need to look at what I am doing wrong. I use a fighter, 2 barbarians, 1 wiz, 1 sorc, 1 healer. Works against everything minus the Golems. I think I needed to web one and beat on the other while doing heals and keeping aggro to the fighter tank.

[Slamz]

A lot of times you just need to hang back with your melee until the tank is fully engaged. I usually avoid problems unless there are so many enemies that there is physically not enough room for them to all beat on the tank.

[Vllad]

HAHA! Yes definitely more than 40 hours of game play. Well now I need to look at what I am doing wrong. I use a fighter, 2 barbarians, 1 wiz, 1 sorc, 1 healer. Works against everything minus the Golems. I think I needed to web one and beat on the other while doing heals and keeping aggro to the fighter tank.

Seriously I use 4 Invulnerable Ragers (Barbarians) 1 cleric and 1 Bard for 90% of my fights. I take along a single storyline NPC for things when I have to. 

One of the Ragers is equipped with Heavy armor, the rest medium. I have them all use different two handers. The Great Axes are the key to most things since they come with Acid, Fire or Frost damage. Getting your group feats rolling with Barbarians is very powerful along with Rage and the Bard Songs. I am up to like +14 to hit. As long as you don't miss Barbs are the way to go. 

Unlike Normal D&D I think this game is built better for mass sets of the same classes rather than diversity. A Diverse group is a bad group in my opinion. Not just Barbarians but bulk Paladins, bulk Bards, bulk Necro's or bulk Druids seem to be a better way to build your groups. The group feats are so nice that unless you have multiple characters set up with them doing the same thing you are really cutting your group short.

[Slamz]

I noticed Inquisitors can get an interesting option where if they get a group feat then as far as the Inquisitor is concerned, everyone near them has it too. Like if you get Defensive Maneuvers on the Inquisitor then he has the effect while standing near a couple of wizards who don't have it. (The benefit is not mutual. The wizards don't get it.)

Might be an interesting way to make a specialist out of an Inquisitor without necessarily needing to tie in with the people around him.

[Dharus]

Well, the key is stacking as with most of these games.  Stack feats, stack effects, whatever.  Bards are great in that there songs stack on a lot of things and they can switch from skill based to combat based. 

My diverse groups haven't had problems other than RNG issues.  The one complaint I have is scouting, sneaking is a bit weak.

[Crice]

Once I get web and fireball, I can slowly kill most anything. You have to switch melee to ranged which sucks, or just "H" them to hold till the mob has taken several hits and is at the edge of the web. None of this matters though if I can't figure out how to keep the Kingdom going. Correct me if I am wrong but in the files the levels go from 1-1000+, surely the Curse isn't impossible?

[Vllad]

  The one complaint I have is scouting, sneaking is a bit weak.

You need really good stealth and the ability to stealth, I find that only true Rogue's are really good at it. Run Nok Nok around, you will see that Bards or other make shift rogues just don't pull it off very well. 

You could make a case that real Rogues could solo this game as long as they get those flat footed attacks to work every time. Catching anything unaware can be devastating. I don't think the game has enough defenders that are rogues. That guy with the Stag Lord has hit me harder than even Elder Owl Bears.

[Zouji]

At higher levels of 3.x D&D the flatfooted bonus won't help, because there are lots of monsters that are immune to being caught flatfooted.

[Vllad]

After trying to hang on for multiple chapters I finally collapsed. I should have called it quits back when I fell below zero stability.

Weeks of investment on characters could just go up in flames. Personally I love it but more RPGers are going to hate this game.

[Slamz]

I just find the RNG of D&D to be too harsh. Particularly when going up against single large enemies that can crit for almost the entire health of a full tank fighter. Then it feels like the encounter is less about tactics and more about just hoping your dice rolls are luckier than theirs. You can pile on all the defenses you want but the bulk of them are merely lowering to-hit chances rather than MMO style damage mitigation that makes fights manageable.

[Skelas]

I've been having good success with A conjuration focused team build.  Any big fight I just summon as many creatures as I can, send them in first, and they are the perfect meat shield.  main character is conjuration specced wizard with augmented summoning. It's working well.

[Dharus]

I just find the RNG of D&D to be too harsh. Particularly when going up against single large enemies that can crit for almost the entire health of a full tank fighter. Then it feels like the encounter is less about tactics and more about just hoping your dice rolls are luckier than theirs. You can pile on all the defenses you want but the bulk of them are merely lowering to-hit chances rather than MMO style damage mitigation that makes fights manageable.

That's usually the problem with DMs vs Computers.  Although, some DMs are even more ruthless.

[Crice]

After trying to hang on for multiple chapters I finally collapsed. I should have called it quits back when I fell below zero stability.

Weeks of investment on characters could just go up in flames. Personally I love it but more RPGers are going to hate this game.

I feel your pain. I am hoping to see a post from the developers that getting past the curse and onto new content is impossible. When I just went and explored and put the Kingdom on auto I enjoyed all the new content and story line. The problem is while you are enjoying the content and story line the kingdom is going to shit. I threw in the towel for awhile. Kingmaker won!

[Vllad]

I just find the RNG of D&D to be too harsh. Particularly when going up against single large enemies that can crit for almost the entire health of a full tank fighter. 

Problem 1 on that front is tanks are not fighters with shields. 

Tanks are classes that don't take damage. Those are Aasimar Monks, Human or Aasimar Rager Invuls (Barbs) and classes like that. You have to throw off shackles of standard MMO models and build tanks that are ONLY acceptable to Crits. i.e., they are only hit when the AI rolls a natural 20. Once you are in that position you get feats that reduce specifically the crit damage. 

The problem with fighters with shields is typically fighters don't get enough Dex bonuses given the high end AC armor to get enough AC to eliminate all non natural 20 hits. Also shield wearers don't do enough damage without very careful weapon/feat selection to add anything beyond mitigation worth it. i.e., if the tank can't solo the creature it is tanking with minimal healing then you are subject to too many random generated rolls. 

Try one more game with two tanks, 2 Rager Invuls or 1 Rager Invul and a Monk. 

Think of the fights as your two tanks are primarily going to kill the main target while your casters kill everything else and do the utility. A good Cleric and Bard can keep those two kinds of tanks up leaving you two other classes to play as you wish. 

The other thing to consider is multi classing. 

Watch the following video of a guy who solo's the game with a Monk, even if you don't like his style it will probably give you a better idea on how to multi class, solo, and build a proper character that isn't D&D intuitive. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilM7Kf2cYwU

This game should be beating you on Kingdom side of things, not the character side of things unless you aren't optimizing properly.

[Maren]

I've been doing well with my main as a Divine Bodyguard Paladin with Valerie, Amiri, Linzi, and a Animal Spec druid and bow spec Ranger. I'm only level 7 playing on normal, one of the interesting things (which might be a bug) is that I gave Linzi the relic necklace that increases trickery and give sneak attack (but will sneak attack friendlies when they move out of touch range as an attack of opportunity) - she now does sneak attack damage with her flaming light cross bow.

If I go down in flames in later chapters,  I can already see where I might take another party - Inquisitors, with their free team work talents, will definitely make it in the party next time. I'm still interested in trying to make a magus work for me - although I tend to be too conservative with spells for both arcane and divine

[Skelas]

Fanatical.com has it on sale right now for 30 bucks.  It's a steam key that unlocks on the steam platform.

[Vllad]

- Inquisitors, with their free team work talents, will definitely make it in the party next time.

This Inquisitor concept has broken my brain, I thought it was a great idea as well but... only one person having the feats kind of negates the point of the feats. i.e., outflank, precise strike etc only work well if multiple melee are stacking them on single targets. 1 precise strike is dumb since you can actually get other feats that are better. 3 Precise strikes are deadly.

Ok so only one person having team feats doesn't really work. So I tried multiple Inquisitors so I had multiple people now get free team feats. However I felt pretty stupid because once you do that, that kind of negates the need to free team feats. I could have just built Barbarians that all have the feats and do them better so I don't need Inquisitors then.

Ok, well at least those free team feats sounds awesome for a Solo character game right? Nope, they don't apply to the Inquisitor unless he has team-mates there to get the application. In other words that talent doesn't work if the Inquisitor is solo.

So that left me multiple times deleting Inquisitors because their best skill is completely dumb and a true Oxy Moron.

So, yes you get Team Feats that apply to you even if your other team-mates don't have them which when you play it out is 100% completely useless.

Inquisitors sound awesome until you play them. My evil group has multiple Inquisitors. I just can't get them to work properly. Maybe the pure Necro thing in plate can be done? Make them all just Shadow Knights? 1 by itself really comes up short.

[Maren]

Well, my point with the inquisitor was that I would still spend teamwork feats on my other characters, but that the inquisitor would be free to spec for a specific role (like healer or damage dealer) since he wasn't spending his normal feats on teamwork. Not to mention the inquisitor gets to pop judgements. I've been dumping a lot of my feats on all of my characters into shake it off, shield wall, outflank, etc. That being said, I do realize that they are giving up free class traits (if the inquisitor was a different class) for the teamwork, so it probably does end up a wash.

On a side note, how close do you have to be to be considered "adjacent to an ally with the feat"?