Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous General Discussion, Playthroughs and Minimal/No Reload Thread

[Antimatter]

BTW, @Antimatter, I'm curious if you cleared the 100% of Shield Maze with your current Sylvan Sorcerer and if there is enough exp out there to get level 3 without 'XP sharing OFF' before leaving into the Gray Garrison?

So, the Shield Maze with a standard setting can get you at a ~1k XP distance from lvl 3. So you fight Hosilla while still lv 2. Then you fight the Water Elemental (and most likely use the glaive you found on Hosilla) while still lvl 2. Then you go through the Gray Garrison with allies and wake up at the inn, and that's when the level-up happens.

A creature's turn consists of a move action and a standard action. During a move action, you can move your full distance (30' for most characters) or take certain other actions which are specified as using the move action in the ability description. Moving up to 5' does not consume your move action.

As a standard action, you can make a single weapon attack or cast most spells. You can also take other actions which are specified as using the standard action in the ability description. Rather than taking a standard action, you can choose to take a second move action instead.

If you do not move, you can take a full-round action. During a full-round action, you can make multiple weapon attacks if you are able to or cast a spell that requires a full-round action (such as most summoning spells).

Thanks for this, it's exactly what I didn't realize. I never paid attention to whether a spell requires a full-round action, or how movement distance affected the number of attacks you or enemies make over 1 round. With RtwP, it didn't matter much.

On a side note, an amazing detail about the Heroism buff. Another thing I was not aware of - just didn't notice the decision had any consequences. Btw, how does Bully work with the Big Bird? Is it for that mega attack that the bird unlocks on lvl 7 or something?

 

[Serg_BlackStrider]

So, the Shield Maze with a standard setting can get you at a ~1k XP distance from lvl 3. So you fight Hosilla while still lv 2. Then you fight the Water Elemental (and most likely use the glaive you found on Hosilla) while still lvl 2. Then you go through the Gray Garrison with allies and wake up at the inn, and that's when the level-up happens.

Got it, thanks! With 'XP share OFF' you can get level 4 in the inn (if cleared 100% of Shield Maze) just after talking around and join with Woljif. The whole level difference!

On a side note, an amazing detail about the Heroism buff. Another thing I was not aware of - just didn't notice the decision had any consequences. Btw, how does Bully work with the Big Bird? Is it for that mega attack that the bird unlocks on lvl 7 or something?

Actually, on RP grounds I always take other responses, which grants you completely useless buff vs neutral opponents ahead, but this time just stepped over my nature to get quite needed buff.

As for Bully - I like this archetype more than any other for trip and evasion/improved evasion. Bullwak might be more suitable for tank, especially on Unfair (DR calculates before doubling the total damage - i.e. without it 10 damage will be 20 while with DR2 it will be (10-2)*2=16), but other than that it's not very interesting for me. Bully's trip works if Big Bird uses charge ability or regular attack, like any other trip pets (dog, wolf). Her flying attack with AoE prone at level 7 works even if she is not Bully.

 

[Serg_BlackStrider]

I never paid attention to whether a spell requires a full-round action, or how movement distance affected the number of attacks you or enemies make over 1 round. With RtwP, it didn't matter much.

Well, for Sylvan Sorcerer or any other spontaneous caster like Oracle all metamagic-infused spells take full-round for cast and that's a huge difference. You can't cast it during current round if you need to move even slightly to position it carefully, so if you move, then you can cast metamagic-infused spell only in the next round and it will take the whole next round and even in RTwP it matters (6 sec delay + 6 sec for cast isn't small). You can mitigate this somewhat riding your pet (using them for movement) but it also has their downsides.

 

[Antimatter]

I think I had to take about 10-12 battles in the Gargoyle Cave, half of them were RtwP, another half TB, with maybe a couple where I mixed the modes, to be able to figure out how not to get defeated, and what eventually worked for me was full RtwP. I can say with certainty that the way AI behaves and just how the combat flow goes, TB puts you in more difficult conditions more often than not. When you see an enemy cleric preparing an AoE attack (e.g. Channel Negative Energy), you can move outside of its effect. With TB, you just suffer big damage immediately. When you see enemies casting Hold Person, you can wait exactly for that and immediately cast Remove Paralysis if the save is unsuccessful. With TB, it's defined by the turn order, and you can't influence that much. When you see an enemy targeting one of your party members for melee combat, you can run around the battlefield kiting them and not allowing them to attack. With TB, it'll be a certain attack, so pray for the defense roll. What's more, with RtwP, you can maneuver so that this enemy will be the target of multiple AoOs. You can safely cast a spell and keep running around. That's why the Haste spell is so essential. Yes, the Sosiel area was impossible for me in RtwP, but that is an exception because of the layout of the fight and how you come there with 0 buffs. I also noticed party summons' AI is better in RtwP. Or maybe in RtwP, the targeting system for both the enemies and the party summons is different. In many attempts I made, with TB, the skellies kept getting killed with AoOs because of their stupid logistics. With RtwP, it just doesn't happen.

Overall, the Gargoyle Cave on Unfair, with all those extra summons, can turn into a mess quickly, and you need a plan. Where do you put your melee combatants and when. When do you switch positions. When do you cast your summons. Those few seconds of delay can be critical in certain cases. It reminded me of the Tavern Defense battle in this regard. Because enemies' saves are quite big, I decided not to risk it with Hideous Laughter, and do buffing/support instead, with occasional Glitterdust only. Instrument of Freedom in my case - this is the source of Holy Damage. And keep Haste active, so that it also affects new & new summons my witch doctor provided. Before the combat, I buffed fully, including Bless Weapon potions for the hunter, aldori defender, bard, and vivisectionist. I noticed the Outflank feat helped a lot, so I tried to attack the same enemy with characters who have the feat on purpose. At the end, the witch doctor could also contribute with the Evil Eye - AC hex to just allow others to hit easier.

Here is how the most successful attempt went. Last Stand saved my tank. Oh, and Regill was a hero as well. Not being able to die is a very important feature

Spoiler

 

[Serg_BlackStrider]

I was there several times (on Hard) but not once on Unfair yet. My usual approach with Sylvan Sorcerer is to get Corruptor on Mythic 1 and Stinking Cloud as first level 3 spell. I also let Nenio write it in her book, purchase Scroll Scribing Kit III and write Stinking Cloud scrolls with her at every rest (even in the inn or camp). With this all those Gargoyles and later swarms in Leper Smile are far less threatening. My main problem there was to kill those Gargoyles fast enough due to lacking of martial characters but that's what Bless Weapon for.

 

[Antimatter]

Yeah, in a way, a "vanilla" party can get things easier than my current custom one. Camellia is my Stinking Cloud girl in the Trickster playthrough (with Corruptor) to target Fortitude, Ember spams Hideous Laughter with the Best Jokes feat to target Will, and both of them use Winter's Grasp when needed to target Reflex.

There is also Nenio with her save/die Illusion spells, and Seelah with all the good stuff the Paladin brings (Mark of Justice, Smite Evil, Bless Weapon). In a way, these 4 characters can easily carry even on Unfair, I can see that.

But I wanted this party to feel different, so no Corruptor for me (yet?). I picked the Best Jokes and have Greater Spell Focus in both Conjuration and Enchantment. Probably, I was more afraid of enemies low on their Will saves than enemies low on their Fortitude saves. For Fortitude, my Witch Doctor has Greater Spell Focus in Transmutation for Baleful Polymorph, but we need to get there first. Enduring for now.

Funnily enough, with my Trickster party, I had nobody with access to Haste (as I don't use Nenio), I even picked it later with Daeran as Loremaster (at lvl 15... yeah...), so I'm enjoying this difference. So far, it's probably the most useful spell there is (and it works 100% of the time).

 

[Serg_BlackStrider]

Isn't it better to have second school (Enchantment) via Mythic Expanded Arsenal and spent those two feats on something like Dispel line of feats or more Metamagic feats? Personally I tend to spend main feats for (Greater) Spell Focus on one school and get more schools via Mythic progression.

My plan for current Magic Deceiver Azata is (they aren't particularly feat starved):

Spell Focus [Enchantment] (lvl 1) > Greater Spell Focus [Enchantment] (lvl 3) > Improved Initiative (lvl 5) > Ambuscading Spell (lvl 7) > Dispel Focus (lvl 9) > Greater Dispel Focus (lvl 11) > Dispel Synergy (lvl 13) > Destructive Dispel (lvl 15) > Spell Focus [Transmutation] (lvl 17) > Greater Spell Focus [Transmutation] (lvl 19);

Level 17/19 are not set in stone (mostly for Baleful Polymorph) but there are little interesting else out there. Maybe fit (Greater) Spell Penetration somewhere in between but I don't think it's nessesary as there are lot of means to beat SR even without Spell Penetration feats.

Mythic progression: Abundant Casting > Spell Focus, Mythic [Enchantment] > Second Mystery [Wind] > Expanded Arsenal [Illusion] > Improved Abundant Casting > Improved Initiative, Mythic > Ascendant Element - Electricity > Sorcerous Reflex > Impossible Domain - Nobility Domain > Expanded Arsenal [Necromancy]

 

[Antimatter]

I'd say it's the tempo factor. With Mythic progression being slow, and so many other Mythic feats having a priority (even looking at your list, the Arsenal comes 4th, so it's chapter 3, and depending on the Mythic choice, it can take a while (for other paths than Azata) to even unlock it. I got the second school to use it right away. Also, I might be wrong there, but with DLC stuff, there is so much XP in chapter 3 that you can out-level some of the hard encounters there by doing Midnight Isles or Ulbrig content. While there is no such option in chapters 1-2.

Also, lvl 15 is the highest I got in this game, so I'm kinda blind to what comes after that.

To end the session today, I fought the dreaded Unfair undead smilodons. Summon Undead x4 and Last Stand were just about enough to kill them (before they could start targeting non-summons, non-pets, and non-tanks). The screenshot below doesn't show any seconds left for Last Stand. That's because the time was ticking, and all 12 seconds passed when the last smilodon fell.

Spoiler

Did some reading about this encounter around the net afterwards. Yes, it's unfair. No, there is no reasonable way to handle beasts with 48 (!) Str and 5 APR at this stage. So you just feed cannon fodder to them and kill them with reach weapons.

 

[Serg_BlackStrider]

Make a lot of sense! My builds are mostly a theorycrafting via Inevitable Excess DLC at the moment since I've never been past the Drezen... All of them already suffered a lot of tweaks even in that state. And I'm sure there will be a lot more! No one can gain a perfection... I'm trying to make my builds in such a way that they gain needed perks in perfect moments so for example my Magic Deceiver will get his useful Illision spells at level 10 (Phantasmal Web, lvl 4), level 13 (Phantasmal Killer, lvl 5), level 16 (Phantasmal Putrefaction, lvl 6) and Mythic 4 (at least in theory) can be gained at character level 13 so there is little point to have Expanded Arsenal [Illusion] earlier. I need to decide when should I have Ember her dip in Cross-Blooded Sorcerer so her hexes/spells could be applied to Undead or if it worth it to spend Camellia's 3d level feat to pick extra hex Chant and then on 4th level get her Fortune hex so that she is set for early game (Protective Luck, Chant, Fortune). I've already restarted the game several times only to fine tune those early levels.

Sure thing real playthrough will have its own tweaks to builds but having at least a whole picture of a build in advance doesn't hurt.

 

[Antimatter]

While I have a plan for developing this or that feat, I don't have enough patience for ALL the details, preferring to deal with stuff as it comes.

Such as Leper's Smile. The fact I had tried TB made me think about opportunities, and here is what I came up with. Descari swarms have speed of 30. If I kept my hunter under Animal Aspect - Raptor (+20 speed), she could get to 50. Which meant that if she kept herself at a 45+ distance from the swarm, she could shoot without taking any damage at all. Bookwarm's Headband (bought at the camp) provides immunity to "compulsion effects", and that includes the Confusion area of the swarm. And Swarmbane Clasp (Ulbrig comes with it) enables full damage vs the swarms. So I kept the rest of the party stealthed and far away from fights, and slowly went through enemies right to the Queen with my hunter.

Here is how the combat log usually looked:

Spoiler

I took the shortest route to the Queen that didn't have any extra opponents, only swarms. I think there were 5 of them overall, 3 encounters.

Now, the Queen. Just seeing her extremely high AC (42) and extremely high saves (21 Fortitude, and even more for Reflex and Will), I figured my only chance here came via True Strike scrolls. Fortunately, I barely made it through, considering all the skeletons died and my tank was about to end his Last Stand stance. Seems this is the theme of Chapter 2 so far: rely on summons eating damage, then 2 pets, then one full life of my tank + temporary HPs, then 2 rounds of Last Stand, and keep hitting hard all the time (for this, I have 2 Enlarged melee characters, and the hunter doing pew-pew). I used the TB for the fight because there was zero need to kite. Everyone stood still, hoping for significant damage.

Spoiler