Pathfinder:Kingmaker Minimal and No Reload Thread (spoilers, obviously)
BelgarathMTH
Member Posts: 5,653
Inspired by @JuliusBorisov 's last two threads for D:OS and PoE, I'm inspired to make this one.
The "rules" here are very simple: Just state whether you're attempting a minimal or no reload, tell what difficulty you're playing on, and whether you have any mods. If you fail a no reload, feel free to continue it as a minimal reload. As a minimal reload, keep a counter at the bottom of how many times you've reloaded, and why. I'd suggest that any more than 5-10 reloads is not a minimal reload. Also, there should never be any save scumming to get a better result on any dice rolls. Only a total party wipe or a main character death should be cause for a reload.
Here's my first entry, which is also my first time playing Pathfinder:Kingmaker:
Here is my journal, which hopefully gives some idea how far I've gotten on this first run:
One of the things I've noticed, after having just clawed my way painstakingly to level three, is that this dungeon I've wound up in, is awfully reminiscent of the Nashkel Mines (one of the first long dungeons in the game, kobolds everywhere). I don't see how they could have not been thinking of BG1 and the Nashkel Mines when they created this.
This game seems to be heavily influenced by all of Baldur's Gate, Pillars of Eternity, and Dragon Age: Origins. I give it kudos for that.
I have had one reload so far. I encountered a planned story event where my main character was so badly debuffed he would not be able to ever rest again until the event quest was completed. I was told to search near a river. The first place near that river I went to had a cave where I thought I might find my solution, but it was filled with wererats, including one throwing firebombs, who turned out to be way above my ability to fight. The game does not allow retreat from a dungeon (cave). So, that was a party wipe. I still haven't tested whether it is possible to retreat from an encounter outdoors.
The "attack of opportunity" mechanic, combined with relative movement speeds, leads me to believe that it is impossible to disengage from any fight once it has been triggered. That is like a lot of other games, including PoE, D:OS, and even MMX. I think a lot of contemporary game developers creating old school games are *trying* to force you to reload frequently.
How much I continue posting is partially dependent on how much interest this thread generates, and how many reloads I have to do while learning. We'll see how it goes. But I wanted to try this.
BTW: Steam says I have 19 hours invested so far in this first run.
EDIT: I forgot to say, I'm doing my first run on Normal difficulty.
EDIT: I am going to keep editing this initial post to help keep my reload counter, so that I can easily copy-paste it into future entries with no fuss.
Reloads: 1 (wererat cave while searching for the "Riverbed Nightmare" no-rest solution)
The "rules" here are very simple: Just state whether you're attempting a minimal or no reload, tell what difficulty you're playing on, and whether you have any mods. If you fail a no reload, feel free to continue it as a minimal reload. As a minimal reload, keep a counter at the bottom of how many times you've reloaded, and why. I'd suggest that any more than 5-10 reloads is not a minimal reload. Also, there should never be any save scumming to get a better result on any dice rolls. Only a total party wipe or a main character death should be cause for a reload.
Here's my first entry, which is also my first time playing Pathfinder:Kingmaker:
Here is my journal, which hopefully gives some idea how far I've gotten on this first run:
One of the things I've noticed, after having just clawed my way painstakingly to level three, is that this dungeon I've wound up in, is awfully reminiscent of the Nashkel Mines (one of the first long dungeons in the game, kobolds everywhere). I don't see how they could have not been thinking of BG1 and the Nashkel Mines when they created this.
This game seems to be heavily influenced by all of Baldur's Gate, Pillars of Eternity, and Dragon Age: Origins. I give it kudos for that.
I have had one reload so far. I encountered a planned story event where my main character was so badly debuffed he would not be able to ever rest again until the event quest was completed. I was told to search near a river. The first place near that river I went to had a cave where I thought I might find my solution, but it was filled with wererats, including one throwing firebombs, who turned out to be way above my ability to fight. The game does not allow retreat from a dungeon (cave). So, that was a party wipe. I still haven't tested whether it is possible to retreat from an encounter outdoors.
The "attack of opportunity" mechanic, combined with relative movement speeds, leads me to believe that it is impossible to disengage from any fight once it has been triggered. That is like a lot of other games, including PoE, D:OS, and even MMX. I think a lot of contemporary game developers creating old school games are *trying* to force you to reload frequently.
How much I continue posting is partially dependent on how much interest this thread generates, and how many reloads I have to do while learning. We'll see how it goes. But I wanted to try this.
BTW: Steam says I have 19 hours invested so far in this first run.
EDIT: I forgot to say, I'm doing my first run on Normal difficulty.
EDIT: I am going to keep editing this initial post to help keep my reload counter, so that I can easily copy-paste it into future entries with no fuss.
Reloads: 1 (wererat cave while searching for the "Riverbed Nightmare" no-rest solution)
Post edited by BelgarathMTH on
3
Comments
Did you manage to do the spider cave for Bokken's quest? That cave can be crazy hard for an early game encounter.
So are you running with XP sharing on or off. How about skill user gets all XP from a check?
That said, good luck in Pathfinder!
and my god, challenging was pulling my pants down and doing me dry all day, to the point where i was just getting angry, and yes its okay to have the odd "boss" type dude, but holy crap
some monsters have stats that are just arbitrarily through the roof and it was annoying the piss out of me for how insane some of these monsters were
and to top it all off, there are SO MANY encounters that you can run into at lower levels that require a way higher level party, which is okay if there are a few here and there, but in this game they are literally EVERYWHERE
and it was getting so bad, that i started to HATE exploring the map, because i just kept finding encounters that were absurdly difficult, just waaaay to many difficult encounters no matter where i went, every time i went somewhere new i would think to myself; ah, whats going to be here this time? lets see im level 6 so i should run into at least a pack of 12 balors who all use quicken implosion on my whole team at once, sounds about right ( although it never DID happen, would not be surprised if it was going to )
eventually i just got so sick and tired of the madness that i started over again and put it on normal, and even made some settings easier ( like invincible kingdom and when resting heal all ailments and such )
and doing that made the game way more tolerable, but at the same time, just some encounters make me scratch my head thinking; why did they program these baddies this way? am i missing something? are enemies in pathfinder just unusually strong for the lulz? very confusing
i feel as if the designers of this game looked back at the "classic" isometric games and thought; hmm, people are making mods to make these games more difficult for them, so lets make the most brutal mind boggling difficult rpg that would even make dark souls cry, and to that i say? why?
it was true that perhaps when BG first came out it was damn hard, but not unfair damn hard, but because at low levels with a few bad rolls its game over, but once you start hitting level 2 or 3, then things get much better
in kingmaker, it never gets better ( or at least for as far as i have gone so far ) i feel every time i even get a slight power boost from level ups or perhaps some better gear, the game goes; whoa, you are trying to make it so your character can survive for more than one round? here lets make your future encounters 10x more difficult then.... lol
another thing that frustrates me about this as well, is that i feel there is only one way to play the game; either you make the most insane perfectly built team or else you lose, even in the bg games, you can make gimped up teams, and still be able to get through the game with virtually no muss or fuss, just need to change the strategy up a bit and everything is good to go, but with this game, i feel that if you dont build your team a certain way, you are just setting yourself up for failure and it really seems unfair at many points where the enemy's saves are just so damn high, that your casters just sit there picking their nose because thats about all they can do, never mind them even ATTEMPTING to hit enemy ACs
i would rant some more, but ironically i just wanted to say that you are a brave man for playing a no reload/minimum reload run completely blind, even on normal because this game isn't even remotely forgiving because some parts are just stupidly unfair, so cudos to you my friend, i hope you succeed
i will just sit here on my many many MANY reload attempt to just barely get through this game on normal ( at this point im level 10, and this being the furthest i have ever made it )
@DrHappyAngry , I'm playing on default settings, whatever those are with the slider on Normal. I didn't want to start tweaking settings until I know the game a lot better.
I had been pre-warned about the spider swarms by reading about the game when I was trying to decide whether to buy it. So, I went to that cave prepared with a pack full of alchemist's fire potions. I figured that the five potions the questgiver provided were not going to be enough. I suspect the most recent version of the game has toned the swarms down since the beginning.
I had way more trouble with the bear-like treant. My main character got knocked unconscious during that fight despite multiple healing potions. None of our melee could get through its damage resistance. I wound up beating it by having every character start throwing alchemist's fire at it. I did notice that I thought its hit point bar started out at about the halfway point, as though the encounter had been tuned down, maybe. Also, at the beginning of the fight, it looked like it was fighting Tristian, before he joined my party. I wonder if that has also been changed since the beginning.
(The way death works on Normal is that you fall unconscious at zero hit points, and can have negative hit points up to your constitution score before death. At the end of combat, you get up with one hit point plus, I think, your constitution bonus. If you die one time, you get back up with a "death's door" condition, which means that if you "die" again before you can get help for the condition at Oleg's Trading Post or your capital, you really die. If that happens to the main character or the whole party falls unconscious, the game ends. If a party member suffers true death, he or she can still be raised by a raise dead spell or scroll, but scrolls cost 6,000 gp, which is well above the means of a low level character.)
I've learned from these two encounters that this setting is filled with encounters that can't be won with melee, and to be prepared for that. So, I started carrying a *lot* of alchemist's fire, and I'm looking for ways to do higher elemental damage than that with every party member.
I don't really like that rations weigh 10 pounds per person per camp rest, requiring carrying 60 pounds of rations to do a single rest for a full party. I don't mind using hunting to avoid that, but hunting for rations usually makes one rest cycle take 24 hours or more, and there's that darned main quest timer to worry about, which I'm also not crazy about. I've read other people complaining about the same things, and it seems Owlcat has rejected changing any of it, so I'll just have to live with it if I want to try to enjoy this game.
I'm only in Chapter One, and I still haven't faced the Stag Lord. I'll probably post some updates as I go, including whether I get discouraged and decide to stop playing. If I find the kingdom management not fun, there's a checkbox in options now to autoresolve all the kingdom stuff. ("Kingdom cannot fail, automanage" or something like that). But I'd like to try it once as the developers intended, on Normal setting.
I'm still not sure playing this game blind is harder than my first time playing Baldur's Gate blind. My one and only blind playthrough of Baldur's Gate was 20 years ago, and I've played countless times since then, to the point of nearly having every encounter in the game memorized. That makes it a little hard to compare.
@JuliusBorisov , I don't mean to disrespect D:OS with my comments. I know you like that game, and I'm enjoying reading about your run in your thread. It just didn't pull me in right away like this game has, and I didn't know about how the companion disagreement system works, how much I wouldn't like it, and that I could turn it off, which I will next time. I'll probably give D:OS another shot eventually, especially if your final comments and impressions after you finish your run are positive.
although as you said, you can hunt for them instead which is i find to be better
also game timer wise, you should have more than enough time to hit the stag lord even if you hunt every meal ( starting with my second play through i only used rations once, and that was for that silly quest were you had to go to an area by yourself because that area was like 26 hours away in chapter 2 )
i find the only thing that makes these game timers more difficult to hit is when you are doing kingdom management, with some kingdom management quests you are forced to waste 14 days to rank up characters, and when you are "chilling" ranking up characters bagillions of kingdom management quests open up and you just get flooded with these quests and if you dont finish them, then your kingdom starts to drop and if you dont have kingdom invincibility on, you will eventually get a game over ( lol? )
so far i've been keeping up, but man is it difficult, i can't go more than 2 days before mountains of kingdom quests pop up before i have to go back, and fiddle around and make sure everything gets done
i feel as if the developers are trying to punish people for being completionists, because every time i finish one quest with the kingdom 10 more pop up ( at least that is what it feels like ) and you really have to start micromanaging your time wisely or else some quests just wont get completed or will fail
now with that said, dont be discouraged about doing your kingdom quests, i would highly suggest trying it out in the beginning to see if you like it ( after all, this is one of the MAIN features of this game, and if you disable it, you are cutting a major part of the game out for yourself ) but it is highly advised to have the "invincible kingdom" setting on, and then if it every gets to a time where you had enough of the shenanigans you can just turn the kingdom into "auto" mode ( just remember that once you turn that mode on, you are stuck with that mod forever )
Okay, so far today, I've done a little bit of the Old Sycamore Caves, and killed a worg boss named Grruarruck, or something like that. Great name for a worg boss.
It's been really fun so far. The first thing I did today was start deeper into the caves, from where I left off last night. I encountered swarms of centipedes of various sizes, and then ran into a "boss" monstrous centipede. The worrisome thing about these creatures is that their poison causes dexterity and strength drain alternately, making you get easier and easier to hit, and harder and harder for you to hit them. But worse, if an ability score goes down to zero, you die. That makes fighting centipedes a lot like fighting mind flayers.
Also, ability drain is more difficult to deal with here than in BG. A Lesser Restoration only restores 1-3 drained points, and resting only restores 1 point. These centipedes can drain your dexterity and/or strength from 18 to zero in just a few hits. The monstrous one had a poison that drained over time, and you had to make *two* fortitude saves over the next rounds to end it.
To really pile it on, resting was impossible outside the caves. I tried three times, and got "attacked while hunting" by either wolf packs or monitor lizards (who also have ability draining poison), all three times, and they went for Linzi all three times.
I wound up traveling all the way back to Oleg's Trading Post to recover from the monstrous centipede and its swarm of babies. Resting at Oleg's will restore all ability drain in one night, similarly to the way it removes the "Death's Door" condition from any party members. My bags were pretty full of junk, anyway, so I didn't mind that much. I felt very satisfied that I had survived that encounter and recovered from the consequences, with no reloads.
The next big encounter so far today was with the dire wolf. It was tough, and it had a very large pack hiding to ambush you as soon as you attacked it. I focused on killing all the lesser wolves first. That turned out to be a good thing. It had very impressive attack stats, knockdown ability (called "trip" in this game), and very high damage. Its strength bonus was +5! Despite frantic efforts to heal and save ourselves, both Valerie and I went down during this fight. Of all people, Harrim saved the day with a last minute critical hit with his masterwork light mace.
Linzi's Piercing Scream sonic attack is very helpful to do some damage in these fights, and I gave her Lingering Song to make her Inspire Courage last longer. A Bless spell from either Harrim or me is a must have for any hard fight. Octavia's Magic Missiles were really helpful, and her automatically castable Telekinetic Fist, which is a cantrip that can be cast unlimited times, kicks butt and takes names at these low levels.
We stand victorious over the powerful monster:
Did you know you can access detailed combat log information by cursoring over the names in the combat log transcript? It shows you in tremendous detail the results of every roll:
I really enjoy studying tables, numbers and dice rolls, and trying to figure out what went wrong in a battle, figure out things that could have gone better, and trying to figure out ways to do better next time.
Did you also know that, as a convenience similar to what we have in Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, you can right click a point on an area map to travel there with the party while watching their portraits move on the area map screen? I was really missing that feature until I accidentally right clicked on the area map and had the "aha" moment. It makes moving through already cleared areas to return somewhere less tedious.
One thing I've been longing for lately is a D&D game that recaptures the feeling I had as a teen playing D&D around the table with my friends as well as the Infinity Engine games and the Might and Magic games do. I don't know if the feeling will last, but so far this game is doing it for me better than any other game I've played in a long, long time.
Party Level: 3
Reloads: 1 (wererat cave while searching for the "Riverbed Nightmare" no-rest solution)
P:Km retains clarity when at maximum zoom in - there is no blurring as in the EE's. (I don't blame BD for that; I assume they couldn't retain clarity on maximum zoom in because of IE limitations.)
I am finding that I *love* zooming in to maximum, and pausing every few lines that pass in the combat log to study what happened turn by turn. I am basically using the controls to play P:Km as a turn-based game, and I'm loving it. This makes me think I might have fun trying PoE2 with the new turn-based mode for that game.
also to note, since you have the exact same team as me, when it comes to resting the order in which i put my dudes in as follows:
amiri for hunting ( and your character unless you want to use him for cooking )
linzi for stealth ( i really cranked up her stealth and trickery so she is better than octavia )
ocativa on one perception slot and the cleric dude on the other one and then have valerie go into one of the "+2" perception slots for whoever is lower
with that said, you should be able to rest pretty much unscathed
I'm learning that drinking potions for my front liners, which is four of us, including me, or trying to cast spells in the front line, is usually suicide, because of the attack of opportunity mechanic. (In NWN, you can disable AoO's from drinking potions by playing on Normal, whereas that mechanic is present on Core Rules in NWN. The AoO for drinking a potion during combat is present on Normal difficulty in P:Km).
So, I found I was using Linzi as my emergency healer during combat, using Cure Light Wounds and Cure Moderate Wounds, together with Inspire Courage, while Harrim and I were using our healing to restore hit points in between combats.
Because of the way I was playing Linzi, I decided that maybe Tristian was going to do the same job way, way better. And, his class gives him crossbow proficiency so he has something to do while standing in the back and not casting. That may compensate for losing Linzi's Inspire Courage +1 bonuses.
I've also figured out that I need Octavia to be a mage-rogue in this game. The relevant skills for rogue functions are Stealth, Trickery, Perception, and to a lesser extent, Athletics and Mobility.
I've learned that Athletics and Mobility are counter-intuitively useless for front liners, because armor and shield use apply such steep penalties, you will never pass any checks for those skills while wearing armor and using a shield. Perception is useful for everybody, and also useful for front liners, as traps can be detected more reliably by the front line. Mobility to rank 3 is useful for armored front liners *only* if you want to use Defensive Fighting at a sacrifice of -2 to attack bonus. Doing that practically guarantees missing every hit roll if you also use a tower shield, which applies an equipment-based penalty of -2 to attack rolls already. I think I don't want my tank heavy party to be quite *that* guaranteed to miss every swing.
I couldn't resist keeping Linzi in medium armor to take advantage of her bardic ability to wear medium armor with no arcane spell failure chance. That gave her penalties to Stealth, Trickery, Mobility, and Athletics that made her inferior to Octavia in those skills. You really need a character who wears no armor to consistently pass checks in those four skills. That counter-intuitively makes wizards, sorcerers, and ecclesitheurges the best classes to develop all four of those skills. Armor-clad, strong fighters and clerics are almost never going to pass any Athletics or Mobility checks. Okay, I'll go with it. It's satisfying to now have realized better what the skills do and what kinds of characters will be good at each of them.
We are deep into the Old Sycamore Caves at this point. Our party is kicking butt here now at level 4.
Party Level: 4
Reloads: 1 (wererat cave while searching for the "Riverbed Nightmare" no-rest solution)
So one piece of advice for you guys, is play the game the opposite of how you play most RPGs. By that I mean when someone tells you to do something, you probably should do it instead of doing exploration/side quests. There'll be plenty of time in between the main quest events to explore and side quest as well as build up your kingdom and do artisan quests, the main quest actually has a sense of urgency.
Once you get around to the mid game, level 10ish, the chances of wandering into an area that you're under levelled for goes way down.
@BelgarathMTH you might want to try more debuff and cripple type spells over direct damage. Hideous Laughter is a level 1 spell for a bard, and can take somebody out of the fight for a few rounds. Grease is another good crippler, but you have to be very careful to move your guys around the grease spot.
Also once you have a decent lore nature score on your hunter, hunting takes a lot less time and you're less likely to get attacked while doing it. Having somebody with stealth that can set up camoflage helps reduce the chances of getting attacked too. I think Harrim's special ability also reduces the chance of getting attacked. Most of the time I only roll with 6 rations, just enough for one rest in a dungeon. It's not until I get to like chapter 3 I'll start hauling more around, when I have all the bags of holding.
Inquisitors are the masters of Perception, and you might find one who is immune to poison, and is therefore great at tanking giant centipedes. Slow Poison (Communal) makes that area trivial once you get it though.
It really helps having so much healing available. Some kobold sentinels got through and starting attacking Octavia and Tristian while our front line had run past them to go straight for Tartuccio. "Always kill the mouthy one first, I say." Honestly, wearing robes and chanting in D&D is like wearing a sign saying "Kill me first!"
I had Tristian just start casting Channel Positive Energy healing pulses over and over (It's a Turn Undead type ability, but it can also be used to heal damage for party members - it could also heal enemies, so to use it in combat, you have your clerics take a very important feat called "Selective Channeling."
I was really worried that Tristian and Octavia were in trouble, because they can't fight in melee with their horrible AC. I pulled Harrim off of Tartuccio to try to protect my backline and to get aggro off of them from those kobold sentinels who had escaped being fireballed to death by their own boss. Valerie, Amiri, and I stayed on Tartuccio. Without more fireballs or any strong spells, he didn't stand much of a chance, and he went down pretty fast.
All in all, it was a very satisfying fight, and it could have gone very differently, especially if Tartuccio hadn't killed most of his help.
I had to consult a walkthrough and an annotated map to find a way into Tartuccio's chamber. Turns out there was a very hard to see doorway with a sub-boss that needed to be killed for a MacGuffin to open the final fight door. Thank you, internet.
Next thing is to find and then fight the Stag Lord. I suspect this will be the first truly major boss fight I'll face in the game, so I'm expecting I might need some reloads here while I learn what to do.
Or you might try talking to the monsters...
She advised a direct assault by having her use her status, still unknown as a double agent, to have us escorted directly before the Stag Lord, say "Aha, now you die!," and attack him head on. Of course, I didn't do that. What fool would actually do that? I guess her. LOL
I told her to wait until she heard the sounds of fighting and then mount her attack.
I very carefully explored the map in stealth mode, uncovering one inch at a time, and choosing very carefully what units I aggro'd, and from what position. I found the skill check way in from the west. I hugged the south and west edges until I had killed every enemy there and calmed the owl bear. There was a message saying it looked like it could break the cage door itself. I was torn between the dialogue choices "Free the owlbear" and "This owlbear looks like it could help us fight the Stag Lord." I chose the latter, and was worried when the cage door remained closed, and could not be clicked on again. It wound up I had made the right choice. I'm guessing that the "free the owlbear" choice might have had it run off to parts unknown instead of helping with the final boss fight.
Careful positioning and selective aggro were crucial. "Fools rush in." I have equipped every party member with a ranged weapon they can use. We fire from a distance as a party, and make the enemy come to us if they don't want to have it out at range. Baldur's Gate taught me that, and the traditional Baldur's Gate tactic still works very well here in P:KM.
I am finding that my apparently very unusual party-building strategy of having three healers in the party, including Harrim, Tristian, and me, is very effective so far. We heal to full health very easily and often, and we can also heal very effectively during combat with Positive Energy Channeling, as I gave us all three the "Selective Channeling" feat so we don't heal enemies. I found it kind of funny that the enemy clerics I met often used Positive Energy Channeling to heal their friends *and* my party, because they didn't have the feat.
I had a very satisfying cast of Positive Energy Channeling with a mob of zombies, where I had a good roll and they all exploded, just like can happen in BG or NWN with Turn Undead. I love being a cleric.
This game is impressing me with how much it feels like Baldur's Gate. It feels amazingly like Baldur's Gate. I haven't felt this much like I was coming home to D&D with a new game since Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights.
We defeat the evil Stag Lord:
BTW, I was both surprised and delighted to finally figure out that clerics can use crossbows in this D&D version as simple weapons. If I'd realized that before tonight, it would have made a lot of previous fights much simpler.
When I played last night, I ran into the beginning of kingdom management for the first time. My first impression was that that part of the game looks very complicated, and it looks like a real time strategy game that I'm not interested in.
I had a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach as soon as the tutorial tip screens started telling me what I was going to need to do. I left the play session (I only had a couple of hours to play) having accomplished very little, with no questing or fighting. I must have spent 30 minutes or more managing a party level up from four to five. It's complicated enough planning and making build decisions for one character in Neverwinter Nights, but doing it for six or more characters in the Pathfinder system can be overwhelming.
I went to the options and turned kingdom management settings to "invincible" and "effortless". I thought about putting it on "auto", but that "no going back once you do it" thing worries me. I'm afraid I could be cutting out half the game if I do that. It seems like the entire main story is about managing this kingdom.
I guess my honeymoon period with this game is already over. I'm not quite ready to declare it "no fun" and give up yet, but I'm not exactly loving it any more either. Hopefully setting the kingdom management to minimal settings will allow me to get back in and start having fun again.
So a thing about the events. There's 2, opportunities and problems. If you can't finish everything that comes up, prioritize the problems first, since there'll be damage to your kingdom if you don't do the problems, but no consequences for ignoring an opportunity. You'll generally have at least till the end of the month to complete any event. You can ignore the curses, unless you want to go for a very specific late game path, and projects will stay around forever, so you can do them when someone's available and keep them low priority. You're on indestructible, so I guess a lot of that doesn't matter, but just thought I'd throw that out there. A note about an indestructable kingdom, it can still be destroyed if you shirk the main quests for way too long. So if somebody's telling you to go take care of something, you probably should do it.
I love both the questing and the kingdom management but it is great that the devs had the foresight to make the kingdom management optional - just in case it’s not one’s cup of tea.
I have all of the core 3 and 3.5 D&D sourcebooks and many Pathfinder books so the theory of crafting useful characters wasn’t completely foreign but I’d never played it PnP. Played through NWN1 & 2 just once and IWD2 twice so that’s been my only exposure to “live” 3/3.5 play. I am actually happy to say that I’m still wrapping my head around all of the class combinations and feats in Kingmaker. No two runs have been exactly the same. I’m still enjoying it immensely.
The NPCs can also be auto-leveled but that gets disabled if you change anything during their level ups. Be sure to camp outside the travel map to see the NPCs interact. I believe this might also be the only time some of the romance plots advance, if you’re into that. As long as you aren’t camping in a dungeon, you can still hunt and not use rations.
I stuck with it from launch through all the bugs and have a great appreciation for the game Owlcat has put together. I hope the game becomes fun for you again!
One other tip on something that threw me off a little...the current day and month is displayed at the top of the barony management screen. The Roman numeral next to the name of the month corresponds to the month in the Gregorian calendar.
So don’t expect to finish a 14-day rank upgrade before month-end starting on the 16th of Calistril (II).
for me, not only is the honeymoon over, but now i feel like im on the divorce train, and it was so unfortunate, chapter 1 all the way up to the stag fight was all good, some fights were stupid hard, but i pulled through and it was good
but then when chapter 2 started up, things starting getting awry and went downhill fast
first of all, since i didnt know what i was really doing i was being overwhelmed with kingdom management stuff, pretty much as soon as i walked out of the stronghold area, someone wanted to see me right away apparently, so i would go see them, a quest would open, i would finish this quest, then 3 more would open, and then i would reluctantly would finish one of the 3 and then 3 MORE would open after that *sigh*
in the beginning of the kingdom stuff, it did feel like this was going to be a very complicating process, but after a little while i figured it out and it wasn't too bad, until i just got bombarded none spot with quests and things to do, and the part that was annoying me was that you can only start with 5 advisors and there is mountains of stuff you can't do with your current advisors/even have enough advisors to go around, so you constantly get penalized because you unfairly cant finish things
but even with that said, i was still getting by even if it was out of frustration and anger, not having fun unfortunately
and then for extra icing on the cake, i was getting these "dark epidemic" things that were popping up like wild fire, had no idea why, more and more where coming in every game day, and it was just out of control, and i couldnt stop it, so i had to look online to see what the hell was happening because my bonuses on my advisors were dropping like flies, and then i realized it was for a quest ( to finish chapter 2 ) which they barely gave me any insight on to do, and they gave me piss poor direction to find
see, i thought once the 270 day timer was down, that was the "urgent" thing to watch out for, and the answer is nope, the urgent thing to watch out for is to find an area that is why pass where they say it is and you have to go finish that off *sigh*
so then i went to said area, just feeling annoyed as hell, and was walkthroughing my way the whole way because this game just feels like a chore at this point, and then what i am assuming is near the end of chapter 2 i have to split my team into two groups *sigh* but best part is, this is AFTER a battle you just had, so no healing or preping or nothing, and my main guy was so far in the red, that as soon as i started this garbage "2 group BS" i got chunked right away, and i finally had enough, havent played since then ( which was some time last week )
im thinking about continuing on ( probably will either continue on friday or saturday ) but ugh, why? why must this game constantly pull my pants down and do me in dry CONSTANTLY? i just feel like the devs are sadistic masochists that just hate you, and this is all on normal difficulty with a couple of settings to make the game easier and coming from someone who has 20 or so years experience in the DnD world both PC game and PnP, it just makes me shake my head, because there is so much that can make this game great, but just poor design choices makes it hard to go on, probably a good reason why only 5% of owners beat this game
I'm not sure why you had so much trouble finding the stuff for the quest line in chapter 3. There's 2 threads, one's a dead end, but the other pretty clearly sent me to where I needed to go. I had to wander a bit at where it was hinting, but got where I needed to be.
@BelgarathMTH what @DrHappyAngry said is good advice for kingdom management.
I came here to post about my fight in the wererat cave. I decided to try it again at level five. I finally figured out that you're supposed to have silver weapons equipped to fight werebeasts of any kind. But of course, the only silver weapons available are also +1 enhanced and far beyond my means at level five to even get one of them.
Also, the wererats have AC 26. Wow, okay. Most of us could only hit that with a natural 20. Then, they have DR10 against anything but silver weapons. Wow, okay.
At one point, I wanted to retreat again out of the cave. No go. The game would not allow me to leave the area while in combat mode. Sigh.
This time, I went in with Communal Protection from Energy: Fire, which made us immune to what the wererat alchemist was doing, almost. Even that didn't fully protect his target, Valerie, and we had to keep frantically healing her, since she was the only one of us besides Amiri with a chance in heck to hit. I think the alchemist must have had at least 2 dozen fire bombs. I thought he must have an unlimited number, but he finally ran out.
The battle wound up at a kind of tedious stalemate, but we were able to finally prevail, mostly because I build a tanky party. Our AC was just as good as the wererats', because I, Valerie, Amiri, and Harrim all wear heavy armor and have tower shield proficiency.
Which brings me to another point. All four of my frontliners are using tower shield builds. (I know how important AC is in a 3rd edition D&D game. Your AC is your life.) But, we only have *two* normal tower shields. NONE of the merchants sell normal items of any kind. They only sell exorbitantly expensive magic items. We need two NORMAL tower shields desperately for my party, and *nobody* sells normal anything. WTF? I consider that a design flaw in merchant stocking.
Any way, we *finally* beat the wererats after about ten or so minutes of total stalemate, mostly due to Amiri's Greatclub +2, which could get a few points of damage through on the wererats every time she rolled a 20.
Our victory:
I'm definitely starting to get a feeling of "The developers hate you and want to kill you. They will consider it a personal defeat if you are able to finish the game."
I play D&D party-based games trying to recapture the feeling of fun, camaraderie, and teamwork I had when I was a teenager playing in my friend's basement. Baldur's Gate did that for me, Icewind Dale did that for me, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2 did that for me, Might and Magic 6-8 did that for me, Dragon Age: Origins *almost* did that for me. This game did that for me in Chapter One.
I would never play the famous "Tomb of Horrors" module for D&D. If I found myself playing tabletop with a dungeon master who took an adversarial approach to his players, where his clear objective was to murder his players and to have a good laugh about that, I wouldn't be playing with that dungeon master and that group for more than a session or two before saying, "Umm, sorry, my schedule is too busy, I won't be able to play with you guys any more."
Despite everything, I actually had some fun with this wererat fight by studying the combat transcript and figuring out why things were going so badly, and I got some satisfaction by pulling out a victory in the end.
I'm not ready to give up on it yet, but I'm getting a sinking feeling that "This is not the game you're looking for." I'd be delighted to have that feeling turned around. We'll see.