Ya, requires metagaming, like Mutamin's Garden, Firkraag's lair or anywhere with beholders in BG2, I could go on about the BG series. Taking off your armor in the nymph encounter is good advice, it not only will make you move faster, but increases your athletics and stealth (well at least drops the penalties from armor). If you buff your strength, you might get your athletics up enough to get over the wall, even without anything in athletics, so long as you take off your heavy armor and put your shield away.
BTW, trolls are still really vulnerable to Hideous Laughter and Grease, even at this level. And yes, the fight with the big bad troll can be trivialized with those spells. Trolls will and reflex saves are weak, so throwing spells that use those against them is really effective.
I do agree a sorcerer would be a welcome addition, but with a priest and Octavia can keep you covered on everything. You also really got to push the ranged sneak attacks with Octavia, it's crazy powerful.
I found the duel with Fredero to be fun and challenging. It really helps if you've got Val to 8th level and have a level in Stalwart Defender. Potions of enlarge person, or just casting it beforehand are good, so is mage armor for if your armor gets sundered.
Sometimes when you're trying to save someone, the rolls just don't work out. In my no reload run, I failed to save Bartholemew, the die rolls just happened to kill him before I could even do anything. It happens. The AI can be dumb, but in the stag lord fight, it's just that owlbear's really tough, although even on my first run, I at least managed to lock the cage door. I'm surprised you missed that gate.
@JuliusBorisov is right in one particular way/fashion: PF:KM requires an absolute ton of gaming meta knowledge to succeed. You absolutely need to plan ahead for some things you don’t have a reasonable way of knowing. The two approaches tend to be: look up some general information on what you need, or experimentation through trial and failure.
Game design is not objectively good or bad. If you like the incredible difficulty spike that requires approaches like this, you’ll find it to be good design. If you don’t, you’ll find it to be bad design.
One word of warning for @JuliusBorisov - it doesn’t get any easier or require less meta game knowledge. There is a fight later in the game that get much harder if you do it in the incorrect order, and it’s unreasonable for the game to expect you to know the order (even if it does make sense in a fashion. springing the concept on the player in a boss fight is REAL ROUGH).
I like PFKM - but I totally respect that it isnt for everyone, and it’s justifiable to dislike it for those reasons
"absolute ton of gaming meta knowledge to succeed. "
NOt true. Even game jounralists can beat it on story mode.
The game just expects that you know pathfinder ruleset to play on normal just ike you need to know fo soccer rules to play FIFA. If you never played much 3.5e/pathfinder games, i suggest to put on story or easy. Don't go normal. I beat the game using small party and plan to do it again. I can post videos of guys soloing lantern king on unfair...
Every single RPG I've ever played has encounters where the first time you meet them you just have no chance.
PFK allows you to multiclass. So you can address gaps in your party by having characters progress based on what you need.
Part of the learning experience is to figure stuff out. Like Invisibility. Owlbears do not see through invisibility as claimed. Rather invisibility can be detected through a Perception check against your Stealth, and Invisibility adds +20 to your stealth score. But if your base Stealth score is bad (e.g. you have penalties because of armour) then the Perception check has a good likelihood of succeeding despite the +20. And actually...think about how good that is from a gameplay and realism perspective. Invisibility doesn't make you silent, so why would opponents with good senses not be able to detect you through hearing or smell even if they can't see you? It makes invisibility far less overpowered than in other games, and btw it works both ways (you can also detect invisible opponents if you succeed in Perception vs Stealth check).
Some of the encounters in this game will destroy your party if you have not equipped for them. This is one aspect of the game I didn't like that much. When you are doing the Varnhold vanishing questline for instance, you'll eventually hit a dungeon where the lack of restoration spells or diamond dust will destroy yur party.. yhere is no warning in game, no hint at all about the sheer number of stat draining/damaging monsters in the dungeons...
The dungeon you are referring to gives you a Wand of Lesser Restoration. It even at the very start tells you there is no turning back if you go further and to be prepared accordingly. So if you are not well equipped you can't really be blaming the game.
They did add a lot more camp supplies to the Varnhold Vanishing dungeon to help with the need to change your spell load out so you can memorize some restoration spells. There are some hints dropped beforehand, there are soul eater encounters and the fight at the barbarian camp with the witches that have attribute drain before you get there.
I haven't played it since around when it first came out, but the Varnhold DLC was more brutal and unfair to me. They never made it clear your party needed to be able to work as a functional group of just the 4 members you create. If you were relying on the Cephal or Varn for magic or locks, you were pretty much boned. It was way worse than my first trip to the house at the edge of time, just because you had so fewer options.
I think the issue is what is considered “reasonable”. For some, a reasonable encounter should not require any cheese and shouldn’t take more than a try or two to get right. For others - that same encounter can be reasonable despite taking 10+ tries.
I fall into both camps, sort of. I don’t really think it’s reasonable how some of the mechanics rear their head in party wrecking moments when you haven’t had a great chance to anticipate them. That said, I love a good tactical challenge - so I often didn’t mind those moments.
However, if your prior is BG1 or 2, you might fall into the former camp. I’d say the hardest fight in BG2 is the twisted rune, and I’d argue that PFKM routinely exceeds that level of difficulty. I like the twisted rune. So that’s not bad. Doesn’t mean it isn’t fair to be critical of those encounters.
I think the issue is what is considered “reasonable”. For some, a reasonable encounter should not require any cheese and shouldn’t take more than a try or two to get right. For others - that same encounter can be reasonable despite taking 10+ tries.
I fall into both camps, sort of. I don’t really think it’s reasonable how some of the mechanics rear their head in party wrecking moments when you haven’t had a great chance to anticipate them. That said, I love a good tactical challenge - so I often didn’t mind those moments.
However, if your prior is BG1 or 2, you might fall into the former camp. I’d say the hardest fight in BG2 is the twisted rune, and I’d argue that PFKM routinely exceeds that level of difficulty. I like the twisted rune. So that’s not bad. Doesn’t mean it isn’t fair to be critical of those encounters.
Oh wow, I don't think I ever found the Twisted Rune in BG2 and I had to look it up.
As i've said, if you are having a huge problem in the game and took almost 50 hours to reach the beginning of Chap 2, lower the difficulty; Or try hire some mercs. Druids are amazing. They can heal, summon monsters, deal magic and ranged damage, buff the party and shapeshift. Kineticist are the best damage dealers.
I completed the game with a 3 party member
MC - Sorcerer
Merc 1 - Druid
Merc 2 - Kineticist
Only picked a 4th or 5th to do the companion quests.
Weirdly enough, a lot of BG2 encounters I had to look up since I couldn't find out how to do them correctly (Magic Golems and Beholders come to mind) where I beat Pathfinder: Kingmaker on challenging with only some issues near the end where I changed the story down to story mode because The House at the Edge of Time is the worst. Which I've heard has been nerfed since I last played it.
The dungeon you are referring to gives you a Wand of Lesser Restoration. It even at the very start tells you there is no turning back if you go further and to be prepared accordingly. So if you are not well equipped you can't really be blaming the game.
But it's not really easy to know what "well equipped" means. I did that recently and fell into the same trap as many others, I reckon. All previous foes fell quickly with little effort and then I face those flying skull blob thingies and they wreck me on my first try, heh.. reloaded and won the fight but with major stat drains on several characters, way way more than the number or restorations Tristram could cast. There's a lot of camping supplies and I've pushed down the difficulty setting to allow rest to restore stat drains for convenience, so it's ok and I really don't mind.
But point is, of course you can blame the game. It's subjective, after all, and subjectively sudden difficulty spikes aren't something I particularly enjoy. Objectively it isn't great game design either, subjectively it might be considered so though. And no, facing another foe that had stat drain in a very different encounter is not something I would consider a "subtle hint" that another dungeon have these enemies, hehe (the witches whom I don't even recall I ever saw do something with stat drain)
Anyways, all opinions are valid, but I too found that encounter not so funny. But that's RPGs of these kind, they do always need meta because I'd wager no one actually buff with anti-negative drain spells on every single fight unless you already know that type of damage/spells are coming. I tend to buff AC, AB and saves mostly as a generic buff ritual unless there's something special.
Having re-read @BelgarathMTH 's thread, I decided to check if I can get Ekundayo. Welp, another thing I can't agree with. He's nowhere to be present because I finished the Troll Trouble yesterday. And it seems this doesn't let me get that character.
Let's see. Which of BG1 companions do you miss on if you complete another quest? Only those who are directly competing with your party character(s). Example, hiring Edwin after you have Dynaheir. But does Edwin disappear from the map completely?
Which of BG2 companions do you miss on if you complete a quest? Can you complete a companion's quest if you haven't talked to that companion?
So coming back to Ekundayo, I had to know in advance what to do in order not to miss on him.
This reminds me of Regongar and Octavia - when I first completed chapter 1 and proceeded to Restov, I got a notification a quest was failed. I reloaded, did that quest, and found them. Ok, - at least at that time I had a notification.
@JuliusBorisov , In my run, I couldn't get the gnome mage companion because I didn't know I would need to find a rope in a camp elsewhere on his map before I would be able to save his wagon, which is a requirement to have him join. I refused to reload after I found the rope, after I had already lost the gnome.
He was apparently the only advisor that could fill a certain spot in the kingdom management, too.
I don't know of any other game where lack of metaknowledge or a bad dice roll causes you to permanently lose access to a companion.
You don't need rope or anything else to get Jubilost. You either save his cart to get him immediately, or find the troll fortress to get him slightly later. He's also not the only Treasurer - you can get Kaessi, Bartholomew or Varn for that role, there are 4 options.
Ekun's immediate mission is against the trolls, that's why he leaves if you already do the full quest before meeting him.
@JuliusBorisov , In my run, I couldn't get the gnome mage companion because I didn't know I would need to find a rope in a camp elsewhere on his map before I would be able to save his wagon, which is a requirement to have him join. I refused to reload after I found the rope, after I had already lost the gnome.
He was apparently the only advisor that could fill a certain spot in the kingdom management, too.
I don't know of any other game where lack of metaknowledge or a bad dice roll causes you to permanently lose access to a companion.
The rope just lowers one of the difficulty checks, the crowbar's a red herring unless you have high intelligence and pass a check to realize it's placed wrong. I think you can still get him to join later, so long as you don't let things go on too long. He's also an alchemist and there are at least three other advisors that can fill the treasurer role in your court. Any game with perma-death in it can have a companion lost due to a bad dice roll, it just happened in a skill check instead of a combat here.
Harrim the dwarf's quest can still be done a bit after the troll trouble quest has ended, you just have to bring him back to the fortress. In early versions, depending on your choices there, it might've closed the fortress off, but now they don't lock the fortress if you make those decisions, so you can just go back with Harrim in your party.
Characters have their own agendas in this game, and if you don't address them, some of them will leave to do their own thing. For me this adds an extra level of depth and urgency and I enjoy it. I get that it isn't your thing, though.
I was wondering something. Val's duel with Fredero is winnable, although difficult. Is it at all possible for Amiri to win the duel with Armagh? He always wrecked her before I could get in more than one hit on him.
Characters have their own agendas in this game, and if you don't address them, some of them will leave to do their own thing. For me this adds an extra level of depth and urgency and I enjoy it. I get that it isn't your thing, though.
I would have happily done Ekundayo's quest if I could find him.
Is it the same situation with Ekundayo? Does he die if you complete the Troll Trouble?
Did you consider lowering the difficulty?
Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with the difficulty level.
On a side note, since @kanisatha also mentioned the difficulty, - if lowering the difficulty is the only way to overcome an encounter, that is just plain wrong. And yes, I did lower the difficulty for the tiefling DLC content, because she and my support cleric couldn't do anything against the enemies there. I wanted to create a support caster, use other characters for other means, but this did not work at all.
Also, in that Valerie duel, I also lowered the difficulty level as she just couldn't hit a thing. I wanted her to be as tanky as possible and developed her in that way. I couldn't know the game will require making Valerie more attack-based just for the sake of her companion quest.
Having re-read @BelgarathMTH 's thread, I decided to check if I can get Ekundayo. Welp, another thing I can't agree with. He's nowhere to be present because I finished the Troll Trouble yesterday. And it seems this doesn't let me get that character.
Let's see. Which of BG1 companions do you miss on if you complete another quest? Only those who are directly competing with your party character(s). Example, hiring Edwin after you have Dynaheir. But does Edwin disappear from the map completely?
Which of BG2 companions do you miss on if you complete a quest? Can you complete a companion's quest if you haven't talked to that companion?
So coming back to Ekundayo, I had to know in advance what to do in order not to miss on him.
This reminds me of Regongar and Octavia - when I first completed chapter 1 and proceeded to Restov, I got a notification a quest was failed. I reloaded, did that quest, and found them. Ok, - at least at that time I had a notification.
With Ekundayo, though.
You miss out on Khalid and Jaheria if you do the Nashkel mines before talking to them in the FAI
You miss out on Yeslick if you flood the mines before recruiting him (he doesn't die, he just escapes with all the other miners... unless you killed all the other miners then, ya, he's dead)
You can miss out on Dorn if you don't interact with him in the FAI, then trigger the ambush outside of Nashkel (not really missing out on him, but having to backtrack to complete areas}
I was wondering something. Val's duel with Fredero is winnable, although difficult. Is it at all possible for Amiri to win the duel with Armagh? He always wrecked her before I could get in more than one hit on him.
That particular battle can never be won. It's skripted that way by Owlcat. Try out to give yourself unlimited health for instance the next time: the duel will continue endlessly until Armagh has knocked out Amiri.
Having re-read @BelgarathMTH 's thread, I decided to check if I can get Ekundayo. Welp, another thing I can't agree with. He's nowhere to be present because I finished the Troll Trouble yesterday. And it seems this doesn't let me get that character.
Let's see. Which of BG1 companions do you miss on if you complete another quest? Only those who are directly competing with your party character(s). Example, hiring Edwin after you have Dynaheir. But does Edwin disappear from the map completely?
Which of BG2 companions do you miss on if you complete a quest? Can you complete a companion's quest if you haven't talked to that companion?
So coming back to Ekundayo, I had to know in advance what to do in order not to miss on him.
This reminds me of Regongar and Octavia - when I first completed chapter 1 and proceeded to Restov, I got a notification a quest was failed. I reloaded, did that quest, and found them. Ok, - at least at that time I had a notification.
With Ekundayo, though.
You miss out on Khalid and Jaheria if you do the Nashkel mines before talking to them in the FAI
You miss out on Yeslick if you flood the mines before recruiting him (he doesn't die, he just escapes with all the other miners... unless you killed all the other miners then, ya, he's dead)
You can miss out on Dorn if you don't interact with him in the FAI, then trigger the ambush outside of Nashkel (not really missing out on him, but having to backtrack to complete areas}
You meet Yeslick on that map where you do the decision to flood the mines.
You meet Khalid and Jaheira in the FAI - probably the first place the player goes to - considering Gorion mentioned the FAI and even told you about Khalid and Jaheira!
You don't miss on Dorn. You just have to talk to him, he'll always be in the FAI till you talk to him.
But nobody is telling you about Ekundayo. The location he's in is not central for the game, it's not the location mentioned during the first 15 minutes of the game. Sorry, but those examples are not the same at all.
You meet Khalid and Jaheira in the FAI - probably the first place the player goes to - considering Gorion mentioned the FAI and even told you about Khalid and Jaheira!
Do a quick run to see. Don't go to FAI, complete the Naskel mines quest, go directly to the FAI and J&K won't be there.
The tower Ekun's at is visible from a vast distance away, so you spot it on the map early when exploring the region. It's also on the way to all the stuff you need to do in that chapter. I wouldn't fret too much about missing him, though, you could always use him in another run with a different party. I didn't find him to be that exciting or crucial. There are a couple advisor roles he can fill, but they can always be filled with other companions or a merc if you really need it.
These sorts of RPGs, there's always a learning curve of figuring out the right order to do things in. The Divinity: OS games were brutal with this and would hand your ass to you if you went down the wrong path. Granted, that won't make you fail a quest/miss a companion, but I enjoy the choice/consequences, but if that's not your thing that's fine too.
You meet Khalid and Jaheira in the FAI - probably the first place the player goes to - considering Gorion mentioned the FAI and even told you about Khalid and Jaheira!
Do a quick run to see. Don't go to FAI, complete the Naskel mines quest, go directly to the FAI and J&K won't be there.
Yes, this I know of. I mean, you know about them from Gorion. How was I supposed to know about Ekundayo? See, this is the difference.
Asking the subjects of your barony is one way. They will occassionally drop well placed hints. Routinely talking to the barmaid in your city is a good start.
Asking the subjects of your barony is one way. They will occassionally drop well placed hints. Routinely talking to the barmaid in your city is a good start.
I visited her once. Asked. She replied that she has nothing to tell me. So, I figured this character is useless.
I was not supposed to know she would be talking about different things later.
Comments
BTW, trolls are still really vulnerable to Hideous Laughter and Grease, even at this level. And yes, the fight with the big bad troll can be trivialized with those spells. Trolls will and reflex saves are weak, so throwing spells that use those against them is really effective.
I do agree a sorcerer would be a welcome addition, but with a priest and Octavia can keep you covered on everything. You also really got to push the ranged sneak attacks with Octavia, it's crazy powerful.
I found the duel with Fredero to be fun and challenging. It really helps if you've got Val to 8th level and have a level in Stalwart Defender. Potions of enlarge person, or just casting it beforehand are good, so is mage armor for if your armor gets sundered.
Sometimes when you're trying to save someone, the rolls just don't work out. In my no reload run, I failed to save Bartholemew, the die rolls just happened to kill him before I could even do anything. It happens. The AI can be dumb, but in the stag lord fight, it's just that owlbear's really tough, although even on my first run, I at least managed to lock the cage door. I'm surprised you missed that gate.
Game design is not objectively good or bad. If you like the incredible difficulty spike that requires approaches like this, you’ll find it to be good design. If you don’t, you’ll find it to be bad design.
One word of warning for @JuliusBorisov - it doesn’t get any easier or require less meta game knowledge. There is a fight later in the game that get much harder if you do it in the incorrect order, and it’s unreasonable for the game to expect you to know the order (even if it does make sense in a fashion. springing the concept on the player in a boss fight is REAL ROUGH).
I like PFKM - but I totally respect that it isnt for everyone, and it’s justifiable to dislike it for those reasons
NOt true. Even game jounralists can beat it on story mode.
The game just expects that you know pathfinder ruleset to play on normal just ike you need to know fo soccer rules to play FIFA. If you never played much 3.5e/pathfinder games, i suggest to put on story or easy. Don't go normal. I beat the game using small party and plan to do it again. I can post videos of guys soloing lantern king on unfair...
The game was balanced for veteran pathfinder players on normal.
PFK allows you to multiclass. So you can address gaps in your party by having characters progress based on what you need.
Part of the learning experience is to figure stuff out. Like Invisibility. Owlbears do not see through invisibility as claimed. Rather invisibility can be detected through a Perception check against your Stealth, and Invisibility adds +20 to your stealth score. But if your base Stealth score is bad (e.g. you have penalties because of armour) then the Perception check has a good likelihood of succeeding despite the +20. And actually...think about how good that is from a gameplay and realism perspective. Invisibility doesn't make you silent, so why would opponents with good senses not be able to detect you through hearing or smell even if they can't see you? It makes invisibility far less overpowered than in other games, and btw it works both ways (you can also detect invisible opponents if you succeed in Perception vs Stealth check).
I haven't played it since around when it first came out, but the Varnhold DLC was more brutal and unfair to me. They never made it clear your party needed to be able to work as a functional group of just the 4 members you create. If you were relying on the Cephal or Varn for magic or locks, you were pretty much boned. It was way worse than my first trip to the house at the edge of time, just because you had so fewer options.
I fall into both camps, sort of. I don’t really think it’s reasonable how some of the mechanics rear their head in party wrecking moments when you haven’t had a great chance to anticipate them. That said, I love a good tactical challenge - so I often didn’t mind those moments.
However, if your prior is BG1 or 2, you might fall into the former camp. I’d say the hardest fight in BG2 is the twisted rune, and I’d argue that PFKM routinely exceeds that level of difficulty. I like the twisted rune. So that’s not bad. Doesn’t mean it isn’t fair to be critical of those encounters.
Oh wow, I don't think I ever found the Twisted Rune in BG2 and I had to look it up.
I completed the game with a 3 party member
MC - Sorcerer
Merc 1 - Druid
Merc 2 - Kineticist
Only picked a 4th or 5th to do the companion quests.
But it's not really easy to know what "well equipped" means. I did that recently and fell into the same trap as many others, I reckon. All previous foes fell quickly with little effort and then I face those flying skull blob thingies and they wreck me on my first try, heh.. reloaded and won the fight but with major stat drains on several characters, way way more than the number or restorations Tristram could cast. There's a lot of camping supplies and I've pushed down the difficulty setting to allow rest to restore stat drains for convenience, so it's ok and I really don't mind.
But point is, of course you can blame the game. It's subjective, after all, and subjectively sudden difficulty spikes aren't something I particularly enjoy. Objectively it isn't great game design either, subjectively it might be considered so though. And no, facing another foe that had stat drain in a very different encounter is not something I would consider a "subtle hint" that another dungeon have these enemies, hehe
Anyways, all opinions are valid, but I too found that encounter not so funny. But that's RPGs of these kind, they do always need meta because I'd wager no one actually buff with anti-negative drain spells on every single fight unless you already know that type of damage/spells are coming. I tend to buff AC, AB and saves mostly as a generic buff ritual unless there's something special.
Let's see. Which of BG1 companions do you miss on if you complete another quest? Only those who are directly competing with your party character(s). Example, hiring Edwin after you have Dynaheir. But does Edwin disappear from the map completely?
Which of BG2 companions do you miss on if you complete a quest? Can you complete a companion's quest if you haven't talked to that companion?
So coming back to Ekundayo, I had to know in advance what to do in order not to miss on him.
This reminds me of Regongar and Octavia - when I first completed chapter 1 and proceeded to Restov, I got a notification a quest was failed. I reloaded, did that quest, and found them. Ok, - at least at that time I had a notification.
With Ekundayo, though.
Is it the same situation with Ekundayo? Does he die if you complete the Troll Trouble?
HE din't died in my 2 runs of the game.
But my recommendation is that use giantification spells and haste like spells on him.
PS : Did you considered lowering the difficulty?
He was apparently the only advisor that could fill a certain spot in the kingdom management, too.
I don't know of any other game where lack of metaknowledge or a bad dice roll causes you to permanently lose access to a companion.
Ekun's immediate mission is against the trolls, that's why he leaves if you already do the full quest before meeting him.
The rope just lowers one of the difficulty checks, the crowbar's a red herring unless you have high intelligence and pass a check to realize it's placed wrong. I think you can still get him to join later, so long as you don't let things go on too long. He's also an alchemist and there are at least three other advisors that can fill the treasurer role in your court. Any game with perma-death in it can have a companion lost due to a bad dice roll, it just happened in a skill check instead of a combat here.
Harrim the dwarf's quest can still be done a bit after the troll trouble quest has ended, you just have to bring him back to the fortress. In early versions, depending on your choices there, it might've closed the fortress off, but now they don't lock the fortress if you make those decisions, so you can just go back with Harrim in your party.
Characters have their own agendas in this game, and if you don't address them, some of them will leave to do their own thing. For me this adds an extra level of depth and urgency and I enjoy it. I get that it isn't your thing, though.
I would have happily done Ekundayo's quest if I could find him.
Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with the difficulty level.
On a side note, since @kanisatha also mentioned the difficulty, - if lowering the difficulty is the only way to overcome an encounter, that is just plain wrong. And yes, I did lower the difficulty for the tiefling DLC content, because she and my support cleric couldn't do anything against the enemies there. I wanted to create a support caster, use other characters for other means, but this did not work at all.
Also, in that Valerie duel, I also lowered the difficulty level as she just couldn't hit a thing. I wanted her to be as tanky as possible and developed her in that way. I couldn't know the game will require making Valerie more attack-based just for the sake of her companion quest.
You miss out on Khalid and Jaheria if you do the Nashkel mines before talking to them in the FAI
You miss out on Yeslick if you flood the mines before recruiting him (he doesn't die, he just escapes with all the other miners... unless you killed all the other miners then, ya, he's dead)
You can miss out on Dorn if you don't interact with him in the FAI, then trigger the ambush outside of Nashkel (not really missing out on him, but having to backtrack to complete areas}
You meet Yeslick on that map where you do the decision to flood the mines.
You meet Khalid and Jaheira in the FAI - probably the first place the player goes to - considering Gorion mentioned the FAI and even told you about Khalid and Jaheira!
You don't miss on Dorn. You just have to talk to him, he'll always be in the FAI till you talk to him.
But nobody is telling you about Ekundayo. The location he's in is not central for the game, it's not the location mentioned during the first 15 minutes of the game. Sorry, but those examples are not the same at all.
Do a quick run to see. Don't go to FAI, complete the Naskel mines quest, go directly to the FAI and J&K won't be there.
These sorts of RPGs, there's always a learning curve of figuring out the right order to do things in. The Divinity: OS games were brutal with this and would hand your ass to you if you went down the wrong path. Granted, that won't make you fail a quest/miss a companion, but I enjoy the choice/consequences, but if that's not your thing that's fine too.
Yes, this I know of. I mean, you know about them from Gorion. How was I supposed to know about Ekundayo? See, this is the difference.
I visited her once. Asked. She replied that she has nothing to tell me. So, I figured this character is useless.
I was not supposed to know she would be talking about different things later.