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

[m7600]

As a side note, Pathfinder: Kingmaker motivated me to read up a bit on lore of Pathfinder in general. Mostly, I've been reading wikis, and a few source books. I'm really liking the lore so far, it's far more vast and detailed than I imagined.

One thing that especially caught my attention (being a Spelljammer fan) are the other planets besides Golarion in the main solar system. These planets are connected through a network of magical portals. It's also possible to travel between them using spaceships, or by casting an extremely rare and powerful spell called Interplanetary Travel or something like that.

They even incorporated our own planet Earth into the lore!

 

[alice_ashpool]

Inspired by @alice_ashpool's (Owlbear Charmer) videos I restarted (once again..., after being already at Dwarven Ruins dealing with Troll Troubles, without reloads so far and only one character - Valerie (surething it was Oktavia, can’t bring myself to stop confusing their names) - being killed by Tartuccio's Fireballs) my Neutral Good Halfling Sylvan Sorcerer (10/14/10/12/12/20) with Leopard pet on Challenging/Last Azlanti Mode/Completionist (as much as it only possible in this game). It's going quite smooth so far and we are already at level 4. We took a slightly different route: Oleg's Trading Post>Nettle's Crossing>Ancient Tomb (to pick Harrim)>Pine Patch>Thorn Ford>Abandoned Hut (in order to trigger Technic League Rundom Encounter)>Technic League Rundom Encounter>Technic League Encampment (to pick Octavia)>Boggard Hunting Grounds>Oleg's>Old Sycamore outskirts (to hit level 3)>Temple of the Elk (to pick Tristian)>Oleg's (to buy Full Plate +1 for Valerie, Protection from Fire, Communal, Resist Poison, Communal scrolls)> clear the rest of Old Sycamore. We still have 73 days and 17 hours before deadline, so plenty of time to deal with Stag Lord withing 30 days time limit and clear as much areas as possible (in my latest run we only skipped Ratnook Hill, Tranquil River Bend and Waterlogged Lowland in Act 1). No deaths so far (thanks largely to hints and overal information of those videos). I don't know how far I'll be able to progress with this run (still never finished Kingmaker and never been farther then Act 2). Will see... =)

Very cool indeed, glad to help!

 

[alice_ashpool]

Been doing some planning and here's my provisional Play-order for the beginning of Chapter 3, this assumes the player has managed to Annex North Narlmarches just before triggering Curse, Part 2. These orderes are a lot more "rope-y" than C1 and 2 because of the snowballing variables that can lead to different positions.

1. Send Sweet Teeth on final mission (for now)
2. Build Tatzlford as close to capital as possible w/ a dock slot.
3. Visit Narlkeep to finish Shainiya's quest
4. Visit Tatzlford and talk to Kimo and Sharel
5. Visit Swamp Witch Hut for Kimo's flower
6. Visit capital to talk to Hassuf about Sharel. This should also start Season of the Bloom with the message from the Eebeth Travellers
7. Return to Tatzlford to finish this part of Kimo and Sharel's quest
8. Build their workshops
-This all means these artisans are starting ASAP

9. Visit Shambling Steps to tell Nazrielle about her apprentice
10. Visit Hunting Lodge to start the Monster Hunt (can be cleared in 1 rest)

-What hasn't been done is the Inubrix for Varrask which I have in my to do list, and doing that should trigger the next part of his quest which requires travelling all the way south.

Upon visiting Nazrielle, all availible artisans have had their initial quests done, meaning they will all be feeding in items into the BP factory. I have run through C3 fully once as a provisional now, and it really snowballs up in rank up. Didn't quite get espionage unlocked but almost, and all other advisors are unlocked quickly.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Also been testing out some Challenging No-reload on Varnhold's Lot in preperation for recording. It is tough NR with the default party. My best successes have been with:

Slayer - Made it to the big Centaur Fight then ambushed to pieces.
Grenadier - Benched after the first big map
Eldritch Archer - High hopes for this one.

Keeping Cephal, Magar and an MC alive is tough. My advice for early game is to give Maegar a short-bow, he will still do ok damage if he can get sneaks in. Likewise the Freebooter can bow-it early on when they are not Freebooter's Bane-ing. That leaves the Monk and the Elk to do melee, but even they should not be engaging straight up- Cephal and the Animal Demain cleric can pre-start every fight off with an animal summon each - that should be 5+ wolves to soften things up while your Damage Dealer MC can open with some hopefully high damage hits. Eldrich archer is particularly good when they hit.

Cephal wants Stinking Cloud and the Cleric Delay Poison, Communal for the really tough vulnerable fights. 'Booter and Maegar hang back and plink then can sweep in for anything left over. MC needs to do the damage.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Update: I made it to the final dungeon with the Iron(wo)man Eldrich Archer; I think this is the one I will use for my video so long as i can do the "party deficient" end game. The first Cyclops Ruins map really is the toughest.

Once that is done you get Boon Companion the Elk turns from a liability to a big bad tanky damage dealer. Then getting Boosted summon numbers through the Herald Caller means a sea of bodies between you and the enemy when combo'd with Cephal.

Feel a bit foolish for not working it out earlier but going Shield Bash with the 'Booter is the way to go. Composite Longbow for the first few encounters then once you get the Large Shield +2 she can take Shield Bash and be OK in a front line of Monk, Elk and Booter.

Maegar is still a liability but he does so much damage as a rogue that it is tempting to have him rush in sometimes.

 

[mlnevese]

A no reload in Kingmaker must be quite hard considering the sudden difficulty sikes... in a first play it would be impossible. Even when you know what is coming some battles may be quite tough.

 

[alice_ashpool]

I didn't make it much further in Varnhold - a Redcap ambush killed me. Plus I think I want Stealth on MC because of resting+ambushes. Somethign for next time.

Here's a little update on my WotR run:

Triple Hellfire Ray Supremacy

 

[m7600]

Update on my (first) run so far: I killed Tartuk and the troll leader Hargulka, with a party of level 6 characters, and none of them died. But I had to reload several times in order to pull that off. This was an insane fight. Hargulka has some crazy stats. To give an idea, Charname has 19 Strength and Valerie has 19 Constitution, they're the tanks. But Hargulka has 33 Strength, 22 Dexterity, and 33 Constitution (!). On top of that, after Tartuk casts Haste, Hargulka can attack up to six times per turn. He can actually kill a tank like Valerie in just one turn.

After getting crushed a few times, I had to step back and think "Ok, what's my strategy here?". I started trying to connect the dots, like "Ok, I'll have Linzi start this by casting Fascinate. Then I'll have Harrim cast Touch of Chaos on the troll leader, then Linzi will cast Hideous Laughter. After that, I should have Octavia cast Reduce Person. On Harrim's next turn, I'll have to lower his stats with a Curse spell. Etc., etc."

Fortunately, that strategy ended up working. And the need to come up with a strategy is one of the things that I'm really liking about this game. I've read some comments by other people that said that buffing the party before combat is the way to go. In games like Baldur's Gate 2, that's what I usually do, and I also like to summon as many creatures as I can. But in Pathfinder: Kingmaker, things seem to be different. First of all, Summon Monster I and II gives you some creatures, but you don't directly control them, the AI does. So I don't use summons in this game. And, honestly, I don't buff up the party before a tough fight, because I don't really have a lot of buffing spells to begin with. Sure, there's a few ones that can give you a little bit of an increase in this or that stat, but it's not like in Baldur's Gate 2, where you usually cast like 10 different buffs before the fight. Here it seems that the focus should be on strategy, finding out which combinations of spells are the right ones for a particular situation. Even the order of turns makes a huge difference. Even after rolling Initiative, I micromanage the order of turns of my characters (you can delay the turn of any character in your party, so you can decide who goes first, who goes second, etc.)

It's a really great game. I'm also liking the kingdom management part. My barony isn't much for now, but I'm working on it : P

On a side note, the way that Harrim's story kept developing in the Troll lair was very interesting.

 

[Antimatter]

I've read some comments by other people that said that buffing the party before combat is the way to go. In games like Baldur's Gate 2, that's what I usually do, and I also like to summon as many creatures as I can. But in Pathfinder: Kingmaker, things seem to be different. First of all, Summon Monster I and II gives you some creatures, but you don't directly control them, the AI does. So I don't use summons in this game. And, honestly, I don't buff up the party before a tough fight, because I don't really have a lot of buffing spells to begin with.

Congrats on the Hargulka fight. I don't think I fully understood the game (what spells to use, how to buff, how awesome summons are) until Chapter 4, so your observations are similar to me at that stage. In the Baldur's Gate games, you can get away with no heavy pre-buffing, even with full SCS (until, at least, ToB). Here, you can't get away (I played the game on 1:1 settings in terms of enemies' and my saves/attack). Summons here are just distractors as a few posts by @alice_ashpool show - enemies spend their attacks on summons (or even spend their spells). This is actually very helpful. I know @Xzarloxara didn't use summons in his P:K playthrough, just because the game doesn't explain properly what each summon does.

 

[m7600]

Update: I'm currently investigating the cult of the strange Goddess. Tristian was able to meet one of the members of that cult, a woman named Amalia. The conversation was hilarious. Amalia didn't like it when I showed up to talk to her. She looked at me for a moment, as if examining me, then she turned to Tristian, blushing and asking him several times if he could stay a little longer, and what was he going to do after the conversation, and if he wanted to accompany her to one of the cult's meetings

I think it's really funny that Tristian tries to be very serious about religions but at the same time several NPCs don't really care about those things, they just want to talk to him because they're attracted to him

 

[mlnevese]

There is a lot of character development in this game. One of the reasons I never managed to force myself to use merceneries.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Woljif in a nutshell:

That guy shreds enemies. Idecided to make use of the Flaming Shock Corrosive Kukri with Elemental barrage this time - means giving him Martial Weapon Proficency but It is worth it. It is very much what if you took the best of Nok-nok and threw in half an Octavia since he is a pretty decent Ray-shooter too with his 3/4BAB and sneak attack. With Sense Vitals up he does more sneak-damage than a regular Rogue. He also has Abrupt Onslaught which is where the Bludgeoning Damage is coming from. Hasty Eradicator in the Offhand gives 2 extra attacks at full BAB as well. Not bad at all.

 

[mlnevese]

Woljif is a machine gun with daggers... I never understand why people speak of him so poorly on Reddit and forums...

 

[alice_ashpool]

Agreed, he is one of the strongest companions imo. But then they are all strong. I am of the opinion that the default companions can trivialise most encounters on Core without the MC doing anything - MC is just the icing.

My own subjective rankings:
A+: Cam, Woljif, Daeran, Wenduag, Nenio
A: Aru, Soseil, Seelah, Lann, Ember
A-: Greybor, Regill

The only reason Greybor and Regil are not A/A+ is because everyone else would then be A++

Going to shelve WotR again for now: Made it to Midnight Fane and everything explodes in 2 rounds with Cam and Woljif. All in all the frustration of the Crusade management which lacks much of what makes Kingdom Mangement fun in Kingmaker, and the fact that everything is pretty non-challenging all the way to Threshold now means I will shelve and wait to see what patch 1.2 brings which Owlcat hinted would include some bigger changes.

 

[alice_ashpool]

In Praise of: Waves of Ecstasy

Waves of Ecstasy a really under-appreciated spell and makes up for the poor quality Level 6 enchantment spells. I highly recommend it for anyone thinking about Enchantment specialism.

Waves of Ecstasy - Level 7 - Enchantment - All creatures within a 30 foot cone:
You emanate waves of intense pleasure that cause all targets within range to falter. Affected creatures are stunned for 1 round and are staggered for the remainder of the spell. A creature that makes its will save is staggered for the first round and can act normally thereafter.

Being able to do a cone of 1-round Stun with my high enchantment DC which leaves everything Staggered (i.e. Slowed - only 1 attack per round) afterwards for >2 minutes at the level you get it at is absurdly powerful. No full attacks makes most melee enemies near harmless. The tricky thing is aiming a cone in RtwP but Skeleton are immune so you can shoot through them, and if you catch your party memeber in the Wave it is not the end of the world to have them Staggered as well since you ranged can shred from behind. Demon can teleport behind/to the side and shoot off the Wave into the enemy for maximum fun.

Helpful for a Sorcerer because they have the Metamagic penalties so Heightened Slow for example takes a full round to cast

 

[mlnevese]

Main problem with Regil is that you can't take his AC high enough to be an effective tank. But he can deal a decent amount of damage on his own.

 

[m7600]

Sidenote: I really love how they made Bards really useful in this game. The "Fascinate" ability is amazing when you're dealing with a lot of monsters. I think that Bards are more powerful in this game than in Icewind Dale. If I had to choose between War Chant of Sith or Fascinate, I'd choose the latter any day of the week.

 

[Cahir]

Sidenote: I really love how they made Bards really useful in this game. The "Fascinate" ability is amazing when you're dealing with a lot of monsters. I think that Bards are more powerful in this game than in Icewind Dale. If I had to choose between War Chant of Sith or Fascinate, I'd choose the latter any day of the week.

There was only one fight in WoTR that I was not able to win thus far, mostly because there was a bard that literally decimated my team with his fear inducing song. If not for this bard, the fight would not be that difficult, but since this encounter could be finished without fighting, I chose the peaceful solution in the end. There aren't many bards in the game, that's why this one I remembered well.

 

[mlnevese]

There was only one fight in WoTR that I was not able to win thus far, mostly because there was a bard that literally decimated my team with his fear inducing song. If not for this bard, the fight would not be that difficult, but since this encounter could be finished without fighting, I chose the peaceful solution in the end. There aren't many bards in the game, that's why this one I remembered well.

Fear really messes with your party and sometimes the game is smart enough to try to dispel your fear immunity spells before sending fear your way.

 

[alice_ashpool]

I was close enough to Playful Darkness to go for it. Really making toast of my enemies here:

Explaination: A lot of Greater Dispel to strip all its buffs while it hits some Graveknights and skeletons. Waves of Ecstasy then slowed it down to 1 attack per round. Feeblemin just because Kali is a mean half-demon, Confusion so it only does anything half the time, then Finish off with the Overwhelming Grief and let the skeletons + Wenduag with Finnean do their work.

Edit: I tested this out on Hard and it works just fine too. Slightly harder to get Overwhelming Grief to stick but once it does Wenduag is hitting almost every time.