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there is a rank up immediately at the start of act 4 tho?
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Aug 2, 2022 11:33
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jsoh posted:there is a rank up immediately at the start of act 4 tho? Eh it’s technically the end of act 3. The Midnight Fane is still part of act 3. You’d want to do an early rank up somewhere in Alushinyrra. It’d be a little fast but still an improvement over the act 4 finale to act 5 start machine gunning like 3 ranks at you over the course of 30 minutes. Especially with the new dlc on the 11th you’d get way more mileage out of those ranks.
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Aug 2, 2022 11:50
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WarpedLichen posted:The neoseeker builds intentionally avoid listing builds that are like 20 sorc because they're too "obvious" so I wouldn't take a build not being there as not insane viable, more not worth the nerd cred to write down. Yeah but it would still be good to get some general advice like how outflank - seize the moment is THE teamwork build of choice, or how everyone needs blindfight.
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Aug 2, 2022 11:55
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Mister Olympus posted:for example, you could make a totally valid full-plate tank in kingmaker and have enough AC to survive endgame on unfair, but wrath unfair simply doesn't allow that, you need monk AC and mage armor. is this still true for certain Trickster into Legend combos? something like Invulnerable Rager/Towershield Specialist with all +6 items
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Aug 2, 2022 13:32
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Goa Tse-tung posted:is this still true for certain Trickster into Legend combos? something like Invulnerable Rager/Towershield Specialist with all +6 items That doesn't really make you any tankier than just a Tower Shield Specialist. +6 items are all of +2 AC (and I'm not sure that there even are +5 full plate and tower shields you can get prior to switching to Legend) and damage reduction is just not that useful for increasing your survivability.
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Aug 2, 2022 14:37
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Kinetiscist might actually be a good pick for swarm.
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Aug 2, 2022 14:42
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cRPG bro has decent build videos on YouTube, though he LOVES seize the moment/outflank for every one of his builds. It’s been helpful to get a feel for what skills to take and what works. Biggest trick I’ve learned is probably the half-elf to +4 charisma, oracle nature’s whisper and scaled fist monk for double charisma AC stacking. It’s like boom naked 30 AC at lvl 3. As long as you are a class that needs 18 levels or less to peak (ie bard) and uses charisma it’s too good to skip.
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Aug 2, 2022 15:50
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I am actually not that much of a fan of seize the moment. Turbo into shatter defenses to make sure all atatcks hit regardless of crits against 90% of enemies is more important usually. If you land a crit and trigger outflank from 1-2 allies, you usually kill it without seize the moment
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Aug 2, 2022 16:00
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JamMasterJim posted:I am actually not that much of a fan of seize the moment. It’s what… two feats either way? Combat Reflexes > Seize the Moment vs Dazzling Display > Shatter Defenses? I guess one is a teamwork feat so you need multiple team members in range versus the other is more self-sufficient. Now you gonna make me run back to Hilor.
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Aug 2, 2022 16:22
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andromache posted:It’s what… two feats either way? Combat Reflexes > Seize the Moment vs Dazzling Display > Shatter Defenses? It's a matter of whether you get bonus feats or not with your class, whether you want something like cleaving finish or doing a vital strike build and if you mount a pet and actually want mounted feats. And even if you have room for everything, order you take things can still be a headache.
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Aug 2, 2022 16:28
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andromache posted:It’s what… two feats either way? Combat Reflexes > Seize the Moment vs Dazzling Display > Shatter Defenses? Seize feels very situational compared to Outflank. They don't stack as far as I know (I have never gotten 2 extra attacks from a single crit from what I remember) and two feats is a lot if you want to benefit from ranged attackers. Shatter is really good still.
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Aug 2, 2022 16:56
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Shatter Defenses is good but, unless you have a bard, is mostly a late game thing when you have Frightful Aspect.
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Aug 2, 2022 17:13
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Shatter Defenses only applies to your own attacks though (unless you take the Mythic version), so really leveraging it for your entire team needs your other attackers to take it too? (on the other hand, Seize the Moment is rather limited by the AoO cap unless you have a lot of Dex-focused allies or everyone takes Mythic Combat Reflexes.) I do still prefer Seize The Moment because it gets you More Attacks, so it has a higher ceiling than Shatter Defenses just making all your existing attacks more reliable, but my only playthrough so far was an Azata Inquisitor so I had free teamwork feats coming out my ears anyway and could do both.
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Aug 2, 2022 17:14
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Which one's better for Kingmaker is my question - my party is an Aldori Swordlord MC, Amiri, Valerie, Octavia, Linzi and Tristan.
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Aug 2, 2022 17:22
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Arivia posted:Which one's better for Kingmaker is my question - my party is an Aldori Swordlord MC, Amiri, Valerie, Octavia, Linzi and Tristan. In the case of Kingmaker, especially if you’re running with a bard, Shatter and Outflank is better than Seize the Moment, nearly every time. (Kingmaker also has several more +AoO items, whereas Wrath has maybe only one, if not absolutely none?)
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Aug 2, 2022 17:33
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WrightOfWay posted:Shatter Defenses is good but, unless you have a bard, is mostly a late game thing when you have Frightful Aspect. Not really, Archon Aura works decently , and Cornugon Smash can be acquired early too. Plus dreadul carnage. With Intimidating Prowess, you will beat the save most of the time. A two Hander paladin will intimidate everything, for example. Though I guess you should give the guy who lands power attacks finnean.
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Aug 2, 2022 17:38
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Chevy Slyme posted:In the case of Kingmaker, especially if you’re running with a bard, Shatter and Outflank is better than Seize the Moment, nearly every time. I'm guessing you use the bard's inspire competence to help out with the demoralize checks?
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Aug 2, 2022 18:09
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JamMasterJim posted:Not really, Archon Aura works decently , and Cornugon Smash can be acquired early too. Plus dreadul carnage. With Intimidating Prowess, you will beat the save most of the time. A two Hander paladin will intimidate everything, for example. Though I guess you should give the guy who lands power attacks finnean. Archon Aura doesn't do Shaken. The effect is identical, but it's not mechanically the same. You can build a character to Cornugon Smash and Dreadful Carnage, but that's very feat intensive so I hope you didn't have anything else you wanted to do with that character with your early-midgame feats.
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Aug 2, 2022 18:11
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Also one of my favorite hard melee builds in kingmaker was my weirdo aldori duelist build. First level in the aldori defender fighter subclass for dueling sword prof, next 4 levels in thug rogue for finesse training, sneak attack, sicken, and the ac or attack debuff. Take fighter to 4 after that for weapon specialization, then sprint down duelist. You take 13 strength on character creation for power attack - > cornugeon Smash, and as you level up get shatter defenses. You become an insanely good melee debuffer, dropping sicken and demoralize and rogue debuffs everywhere you go, while still hitting respectably hard and extremely accurately even when you can't sneak attack. This becomes even funnier in wrath if you go Trickster and add a while bunch of sneak attack dice to the pool. Since you can get dueling sword prof as a background you can also take like mutation fighter instead for the extra dex buff.
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Aug 2, 2022 18:11
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JuniperCake posted:The problem is the difference between builds in wrath is really stark and depending on what you choose to do your experience with the game will vary greatly. Like if you build certain ways even the most difficult fights can be shredded effortlessly on turn one and with other builds you basically have to pray for 20 rolls and it's a long long slog. Having options is always going to be fundamentally opposed to balance on complexity alone. It's similar to the length/reactivity trade-off in so-called "choices matter" games. Having a broad range of mechanical outcomes for choices vs a narrow range of mechanical outcomes leaves the development team with a much more complicated equation to solve when determining how hard things should be. Lady Radia posted:in my experience Core is the perfect difficulty because even wacky non-"optimal" builds can get through it just fine. anything above it is dumb as hell. If you have a solid grasp on 3.5/PF1 mechanics, Core is fine for your first playthrough, though I'd still encourage changing the settings to allow respec. Arivia posted:yeah i looked at the neoseeker builds for my kingmaker playthrough i'm doing right now and it recommended starting an aldori swordlord pc with scaled fist and i'm like "you know what i'm good" I found my time in D&D/cRPGs based on D&D became a lot more enjoyable when I decoupled the headcanon of what my characters are from the classes they take. It lends itself to understanding a "Scaled Fist" dip as "Someone who has learned to use their force of personality to leave enemies unsure of themselves in battle." Similarly with Alchemist 2 or 4, you aren't so much an "Alchemist, the potions guy" as "Someone who got REALLY into juicing and would probably make self help YouTube videos selling workout supplements of dubious nutritional value." (Kinda glad Mutation Warrior is a thing for that reason TBH. You're literally Brayko from Alpha Protocol, snorting coke off your sword to hit better and hurt less.)
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Aug 2, 2022 18:41
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Warmachine posted:If you have a solid grasp on 3.5/PF1 mechanics, Core is fine for your first playthrough, though I'd still encourage changing the settings to allow respec. I really have to disagree with this. As someone who's got more 3.5/PF1 books than I can count, Core in Kingmaker put me off the game for years because the game design doesn't play by the rules. As soon as you get to Old Sycamore the game is throwing poo poo at you that is way out of what's a recommended challenge at your level, so the tactics and ideas of how the game should work difficulty wise that you know from playing the actual tabletop game are in a lot of ways a detriment. I'm having a lot more fun going back at it now on Normal recognizing that it's not going to play fair, so I shouldn't either. The Owlcat games are just far enough off from an accurate conversion to go "hey, I know how what a lot of these terms mean but I don't know how they're implemented."
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Aug 2, 2022 18:47
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Arivia posted:I'm guessing you use the bard's inspire competence to help out with the demoralize checks? I generally seemed to have better luck applying shaken via bard dirge of doom than dazzling display. I probably was just missing something on my melee characters to get the application to go as easily as it seems to do with whatever bard I make. You can make pretty good bard tanks via CHA tanking, and at least in wotr the damage can be not terrible via loremaster greater vital strike -> mythic vital strike.
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Aug 2, 2022 18:49
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I'm not attached or aware of the rules much at all, the reason I like these games is because they feel like they much more authentically capture what makes DnD combat interesting than NWN's 'rest before every fight, nuke everything down' approach.
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Aug 2, 2022 19:28
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Arivia posted:I really have to disagree with this. As someone who's got more 3.5/PF1 books than I can count, Core in Kingmaker put me off the game for years because the game design doesn't play by the rules. As soon as you get to Old Sycamore the game is throwing poo poo at you that is way out of what's a recommended challenge at your level, so the tactics and ideas of how the game should work difficulty wise that you know from playing the actual tabletop game are in a lot of ways a detriment. I'm having a lot more fun going back at it now on Normal recognizing that it's not going to play fair, so I shouldn't either. The Owlcat games are just far enough off from an accurate conversion to go "hey, I know how what a lot of these terms mean but I don't know how they're implemented." I mean, the caveat with Owlcat is always "assume your DM is sadistic and hates you in particular" but I didn't include that in my take. I'm speaking from personal experience as someone who has only ever played Core with respec in both games, and who has enough books of 3.5 poo poo to kill a Home Alone burglar. There are plenty of "they chose a weird way of interpreting that" or "that doesn't seem RAW" moments, but nothing that made me go "my knowledge of how the d20 system works is actively harming my ability to play this game."
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Aug 2, 2022 19:41
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WotR would be one my top 3 games of all time if it had an original battle system "inspired" by Pathfinder instead of a mutant version of it, and some actual thought was put into battle balance and encounter design.
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Aug 2, 2022 19:43
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Goa Tse-tung posted:is this still true for certain Trickster into Legend combos? something like Invulnerable Rager/Towershield Specialist with all +6 items this still caps your dex bonus and denies you monk AC, where archmage armor has more base AC than full plate and allows full dex and monk bonuses from stat to ac and monk robes. the problem is primarily with archmage armor as a mythic feat, secondarily with the lack of any equivalent mythic support for equipped armor, and finally with enemy attack bonus on unfair still allowing a decent chance to hit the armored target that it doesn't have on the archmaged target. (maybe also that Magical Vestment works on Mage Armor due to owlcat coding.) I think the main thing that surprised me, in a pleasant way, about Owlcat's interpretation of 3.x rules is how much the 'wargame' aspects suddenly mattered that everyone ignored because we didn't want to draw a map or w/e. Helps that all the standard ways to bypass positioning and terrain based challenges aren't implemented. Mister Olympus fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Aug 2, 2022 |
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Aug 2, 2022 19:46
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My favorite part is how the archmage armor vs actual armor problem was called out prerelease in one of the AMAs and the Owlcat response was basically “this game isn’t going to be balanced” 
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Aug 2, 2022 19:55
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Mister Olympus posted:I think the main thing that surprised me, in a pleasant way, about Owlcat's interpretation of 3.x rules is how much the 'wargame' aspects suddenly mattered that everyone ignored because we didn't want to draw a map or w/e. Helps that all the standard ways to bypass positioning and terrain based challenges aren't implemented. I don't think I see it, at least not anymore than other cRPGs. Do you mean things like reach weapons being important for "second rank" martial classes?
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Aug 2, 2022 19:58
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Warmachine posted:I don't think I see it, at least not anymore than other cRPGs. Do you mean things like reach weapons being important for "second rank" martial classes? kingmaker was the first crpg i've played because i don't generally like RTWP. and yeah, LoS tactics, reach weapons, locking down enemies with attacks of opportunity - these are all things that you never got when playing 3.5 when it was the current edition of dnd because everyone was assumed to be flying over everything and nobody bothered with maps.
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Aug 2, 2022 20:03
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Mister Olympus posted:kingmaker was the first crpg i've played because i don't generally like RTWP. and yeah, LoS tactics, reach weapons, locking down enemies with attacks of opportunity - these are all things that you never got when playing 3.5 when it was the current edition of dnd because everyone was assumed to be flying over everything and nobody bothered with maps. Fair enough. In my experience we usually either had a vinyl map to scribble on with a marker, or we used some tokens and whatever was lying around to make the gooniest terrain imaginable. Gonna get height advantage from atop Cheeto Bag Hill.
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Aug 2, 2022 22:08
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Warmachine posted:I mean, the caveat with Owlcat is always "assume your DM is sadistic and hates you in particular" but I didn't include that in my take. I'm speaking from personal experience as someone who has only ever played Core with respec in both games, and who has enough books of 3.5 poo poo to kill a Home Alone burglar. There are plenty of "they chose a weird way of interpreting that" or "that doesn't seem RAW" moments, but nothing that made me go "my knowledge of how the d20 system works is actively harming my ability to play this game." On normal, My party of 6 characters got killed by a single boar in the temple of the elk in Kingmaker
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Aug 3, 2022 01:55
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The roguelike dlc has been delayed until August 30th.
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Aug 3, 2022 14:55
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I wonder how the roguelike mode will work with the late game paths. Will you just get a pop up at the appropriate mythic rank that lets you switch?
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Aug 3, 2022 14:58
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Mister Olympus posted:toggling exp split settings so that you hit level 3 at the start of the shield maze helps a lot, skipping woljif and ember until you've cleared out the market square as much as you can helps more, you can get level 5 or close before recruiting either of them This works like a charm! Hit level 3 about an encounter or two into the Shield Maze, made it a total breeze and surprisingly quick even while completing everything. Ended up just shy of level 4 coming out, so I still got to buy mercs at level 3 prices.
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Aug 3, 2022 15:01
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Pinely posted:This works like a charm! Hit level 3 about an encounter or two into the Shield Maze, made it a total breeze and surprisingly quick even while completing everything. Ended up just shy of level 4 coming out, so I still got to buy mercs at level 3 prices. An alternative approach to this is to keep your MC at level 1 until you get to the inn, level your companions as normal. Turn off split xp, go to the world map, go back into the inn, you should be able to buy mercs at level 1 prices. I got 3 or 4 with no idea what I was going to use them for, though you may want to start toggling your xp to just active party members at that point. I don’t micro when to split xp or not as much as I should.
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Aug 3, 2022 15:47
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Just got this game and it seems cool but I'm not sure which class to pick. The first character I made was a wizard but then I was thinking a rogue would be cool to play. Is rogue difficult when you don't have a ton of experience with the pathfinder ruleset? Slayer is also a class I was thinking about. Also are there any big pitfalls to be aware of during character creation?
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Aug 4, 2022 00:14
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hostess with the Moltres posted:Just got this game and it seems cool but I'm not sure which class to pick. The first character I made was a wizard but then I was thinking a rogue would be cool to play. Is rogue difficult when you don't have a ton of experience with the pathfinder ruleset? Slayer is also a class I was thinking about. Also are there any big pitfalls to be aware of during character creation? Welcome to Pathfinder. Make sure respec is turned on in the difficulty settings, and pick what seems fun. If it isn't actually fun in practice, find the respec NPC and reroll (I think his name is Hilor?). He should be in either the Inn in Kenbres or Drezen depending on where you are in the story.
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Aug 4, 2022 00:18
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hostess with the Moltres posted:Just got this game and it seems cool but I'm not sure which class to pick. The first character I made was a wizard but then I was thinking a rogue would be cool to play. Is rogue difficult when you don't have a ton of experience with the pathfinder ruleset? Slayer is also a class I was thinking about. Also are there any big pitfalls to be aware of during character creation? They had a few classes with features that just didn't work but they fixed a lot of those so there aren't as many trap classes anymore. So just go with what seems fun and as said, just respec if you end up not liking it. Most classes will take a few levels to get good so keep that in mind. Going 20 levels in one class is perfectly viable too, so you don't need to do a crazy build to do well. Main thing is don't pick Core difficulty. It says it's equivalent to tabletop but that's a lie. It's a hard mode. Very good for a second playthrough but not your first.
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Aug 4, 2022 01:04
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Chevy Slyme posted:Regill is garbage, and so is Greybor. Wenduag works only because she comes in at level 1; same for Lann honestly. Woljif is… salvageable as an Alchemist but god help you if you keep him as a straight rogue. I feel like we played fundamentally different games. Are you exclusively playing on Unfair here? You... you don't need to obsessively munchkin optimize every single PC. It's just not that hard even on Core or Hard. I'm pretty sure this isn't necessary even on Unfair.
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Aug 4, 2022 01:19
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hostess with the Moltres posted:Just got this game and it seems cool but I'm not sure which class to pick. The first character I made was a wizard but then I was thinking a rogue would be cool to play. Is rogue difficult when you don't have a ton of experience with the pathfinder ruleset? Slayer is also a class I was thinking about. Also are there any big pitfalls to be aware of during character creation? I would avoid wiz/sorc as a first character if you're new to the system. Given how most enemies you fight have spell resistance and some amount of elemental damage reduction it'll be difficult to make a viable character as you're trying to figure out which spells are worthwhile. Rogue is good and pretty versatile, all you really need to do is get in on monsters that another NPC is in melee with and you'll do gangbusters. Slayer is really easy to build well. If you want to dip your toes into casting, bloodrager is also a great starter. If you want to be like a ranged blaster, rather than a wizard, give Grenadier Alchemist a swing, they dodge a lot of the pitfalls of blaster casters in Wrath of the righteous (namely, they skirt spell resistance and have an easier time hitting), they get access to a lot of support and buffing magic that is still useful, and they get some amazing skill growth.
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Aug 4, 2022 02:21
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