The most difficult part is the perception mechanic and not finding secret doors that hide the items. I think the dungeon is procedural so the drops and secret doors are never in the same place on different runs.
I don’t recall much specific, cold breath probably. I did it once when the DLC dropped and haven’t been back. My current run is in about the right spot, maybe I’ll check it out again.
The dragon talks about being afraid to go into the dungeon because he might be overcome by the spawn like the other bosses. He was right.
I've played the game rather a lot and enjoyed it a great deal, but I suppose I have now found, upon arriving at the House at the end of Time, that it's probably not worth it anymore. The encounter design is way way way over the top, to the extent that it's just not remotely funny. Also, the encounters provide no real reward, which is the real killer: I'm all for a really difficult dragon fight, for example, if there's something at the end of it.
I'm frankly astonished by the designers' decisions here.
There have been a couple of precursors to this in the game. The most obvious and blatant example was the first trip to the Verdant Chambers, the one you have to do alone in order to meet the Guardian of the Bloom. That encounter was blatant and shameless cheating: once you arrive in the courtyard and put things in motion with the tree, the whole scene changes and there are traps and monsters in places that were safe before, just like that.
My RPG and cRPG experience goes back to the 1980s, and I'd say it's a pretty iron-clad rule that you just don't do that. The GM or DM must never cheat to kill his/her players (what would be the bloody point?), and the computer must play fair. But with P:K, it doesn't.
I was also extremely disappointed that even though I had personally killed a certain undead companion, that same undead was brought back (how?) in the House and proceeded to kill my main priest companion. Nothing I could do about that. And although the priest's corpse was quite clearly lying there, it was impossible to bring it back. Again a note to the developers: don't do this. (This actually turned out to be one of the things I googled, just to understand why it happened. Apparently it happened because my alignment is neutral. If I had been good, things would have been different, although my choices would have been exactly the same. D'oh.)
Yeah, the companions thing was weird. Jaethal, Harrim and Nok-Nok were listed as my companions whose fates I needed to determine when I entered the House. The first 2 hadn't been in my party since the Prologue (I told them to beat it after Old Sycamore) and Nok-Nok had left a couple of chapters previously when I told him to sort out his own problems.
All 3 were referred to in encounters within the House (Jaethal with Tristian) but they weren't actually there! I somehow got their equipment (mainly all the gear I had given to Nok-Nok) but the companions themselves weren't visible. That's a bug I suppose, only companions who are actively part of the group should be referenced I think.
With regard to Ravaged Capital: I think there should just be one map across which the Apology fragments are scattered, fight the scouts and archers with some ambushes as well to clear that. Then second map should be a large battlefield with an epic fight to really round things off before facing the Lantern King. At the risk of possibly making it too difficult:
2 x Wild Hunt Monarchs
10 x Wild Hunt Scouts
10 x Wild Hunt Archers
6 x Vilravens (or whatever they are called)
2 x Lesser Jabberwock Shadows
1 x Greater Jabberwock Shadow
Shade of Nyrissa
Shade of the Knurly Witch
Shade of the Wriggling Man
(The last 3 have all the powers their individual encounters had, with maybe some additional shade-type powers like better DR vs energy attacks)
Now that would be a memorable encounter. A but like the Ascension ToB fight, albeit here you still have the Lantern King to come.
Maybe to avoid that fight not becoming too overwhelming, that could be the major battle for your kingdom where all your allies join in. Instead of having them scattered across multiple encounters, they all participate in this major battle instead. So you have some guards, the likes of Kesten and Jhod, all the allies you have made in the campaign (Pitax, Jamandi, barbarians, trolls and whoever else). The emphasis would still be on the player to win the battle but at least your allies buy you a few rounds of distraction. I think it would also be thematically great, as you have built up a kingdom and this is more like a pitched battle between armies rather than just an adventuring encounter.
The CPU demands for that would be quite extensive, and I suppose there might be a heated discussion among players as to whether it resembles swimming in honey or swimming in tar.
There are rules for large scale battles on pathfinder. Implement them only for this encounter would be hard BUT allow few checks of and having some allied loses(even if was text only) would be better imo. I lowered the difficulty. Not because was hard, but to face the real enemy sooner.
I'm frankly astonished by the designers' decisions here.
There have been a couple of precursors to this in the game. The most obvious and blatant example was the first trip to the Verdant Chambers, the one you have to do alone in order to meet the Guardian of the Bloom. That encounter was blatant and shameless cheating: once you arrive in the courtyard and put things in motion with the tree, the whole scene changes and there are traps and monsters in places that were safe before, just like that.
My RPG and cRPG experience goes back to the 1980s, and I'd say it's a pretty iron-clad rule that you just don't do that. The GM or DM must never cheat to kill his/her players (what would be the bloody point?), and the computer must play fair. But with P:K, it doesn't.
I actually like that encounter. The change of the tone of Nyrissa, from the damsel in distress to blatant villain, the deadly ambush set in motion while she escapes...
And you know, it is a trap, she wants to kill you. IMHO she did it well, but not enough.
The devs surely put you in bad odds: Surrounded by enemies, away from your allies, trapped in a dead magic zone... but also gave you options to overcome it.
First, they do not attack you directly, so you have time to prepare (what an ambush!)
You can fight the enemies there (they are conveniently separated one from another),
you can sneak past them or
you can simply climb the wall and escape only fighting only a few easy enemies like the wolves if you made two skill checks. Then you can come with your full party and clean the area.
There are some encounters in the game that seem strange choices for a level design but this one? I think it is pretty well made, it is one of the quests I enjoy a lot.
And also it is optional, you do not have to do it to finish the chapter and continue with the story. I remember I skipped entirely until they fixed the dead magic bug.
What you describe there is fine, but what is not fine is that traps and monsters suddenly and inexplicably appear in places that were safe ten seconds ago. That's cheating. There are other instances of this in the game, too, but I chose that as the most obvious one, because I was pretty sure that people would recognize it.
Besides, in practice, much of what you describe there requires the kind of (meta-)knowledge that you gain by trial and error, i.e. reloading your save. Again, that's not a problem. But the cheating is, it's a real biggie. In table-top RPG terms it's the kind of thing that makes a GM lose his group of players, because nobody likes a cheat.
What you describe there is fine, but what is not fine is that traps and monsters suddenly and inexplicably appear in places that were safe ten seconds ago. That's cheating. There are other instances of this in the game, too, but I chose that as the most obvious one, because I was pretty sure that people would recognize it.
Besides, in practice, much of what you describe there requires the kind of (meta-)knowledge that you gain by trial and error, i.e. reloading your save. Again, that's not a problem. But the cheating is, it's a real biggie. In table-top RPG terms it's the kind of thing that makes a GM lose his group of players, because nobody likes a cheat.
No, is not. You saw portals before. And the quest is "optional", makes sense that an Nymph would try to kill someone that way IMO.
I agree the portals could conceivably explain the monsters, but there is no explanation for the traps. And, as I said, this is just one example of this phenomenon, there are plenty of others: there are consecutive rooms ABCD. You start at A, and when you walk into B, it's empty, but once you get to C, there are suddenly monsters in B. Monsters that are clearly not teleported there, because there is no agency to do that.
As for the whole nymph thing, it beggars belief but I'm willing to suspend my disbelief because that's just how it goes. In other words, if the nymph can use portals and summon monsters like that, she should be able to easily kill the player no matter what. But then, since the player doesn't have a kingdom at that point, it actually wouldn't make sense to kill the player anyway. The game is full of rubbish writing, but I'm willing to let it go. I mean, the dialogue is so poor that I wonder if it's a parody or not. I'm still not sure.
If you're talking about places like Armag's tomb, in all fairness those enemies that pop up behind you are specters, so they could have just come through the walls. At other times it could just be new enemies entering the dungeon, it's just due to limitations they stick them a room behind you. I actually enjoy the encounter variance, it keeps you on your toes.
The Verdant chambers also has a couple of invisibility potions on the map, hint, hint. Normally I've picked up a couple before then, though. I also don't see the problem with her being able to conjure traps and have you not see it. She is an ancient and powerful fey. You also have the barony, so it'd be good enough if she killed you, it was good enough when you killed the stag lord and he was just a bandit lord. Reasons she didn't kill you herself could be she needs to get back to preparing the bloom, she feels you're so weak you don't warrant her personal attention, she might be forbidden from directly killing a lord herself unless her life's threatened, or she doesn't care enough to expend much effort since she thinks she can kill you whenever she wants but decides to use you as a foil against Irovetti and this encounter was just a test to see if you could stand up to him. The motives of ancient fey are mysterious. It could also be she's just a bit crazy after living in torment for so long. At least she didn't explain her whole plan and let James Bond escape the death trap
I'm close enough to end that I will make sure I finish but restartitis is definitely present!
Trouble is after playing kineticist anything else is going to feel so useless. I loved Sword Saint but that's going to feel hopelessly weak now (what do you mean I have to roll to hit?! Why am I doing 20 damage to one opponent instead of 200 to everyone?!)
I'm close enough to end that I will make sure I finish but restartitis is definitely present!
Trouble is after playing kineticist anything else is going to feel so useless. I loved Sword Saint but that's going to feel hopelessly weak now (what do you mean I have to roll to hit?! Why am I doing 20 damage to one opponent instead of 200 to everyone?!)
That's sort of like how I generally don't take Nok-Nok or play a dual wielding sneak attacker myself, since they're just overpowered in this game. I enjoy the game far more without them and wish sneak attack was more balanced. I do sometimes miss the crazy damage floats, like multiple 75 damage with -2 strength damage each flying by, but it's a more interesting game without that.
I'm considering giving everyone in the party some sneak attack ability just to see how it goes... a levelof vivisectioninst for everybody should do the trick
1 level of Vivi can never hurt but don't think 1d6 sneak attack (average +3.5 damage) will do very much. The mutagen is the more valuable boost you get from the Vivi level.
1 level of Vivi can never hurt but don't think 1d6 sneak attack (average +3.5 damage) will do very much. The mutagen is the more valuable boost you get from the Vivi level.
It can be 2 levels with accomplished sneak attacker, but it won't get crazy like Nok-Nok gets after around level 10 when he's got like 4-5 attacks and 5+ sneak attack dice. I don't consider it being overpowered like a dual wielding rogue gets. Of course he's great when you're still learning the game and don't know where everything is since he can ginsu anything.
1 question I am not clear on: in current run I have a ton of protection from x (law/evil/chaos/good) scrolls and potions. They offer a +2 bonus to AC and saves against the appropriate alignment. But if I have a Ring of Protection +2 or better and Cloak of Resistance +2 or better, are these scrolls and potions totally useless? Or do they stack because they are vs specific alignment rather than all-encompassing?
@minevese You can actually do a (almost) full party of accomplished sneak attackers. I made one for BtSL DLC, the Brave backstabbers:
Slayer+thug (Frightening-dazzling- cornugon smash is your friend.Full STR. 1 lvl thug is enough)
Knife Master (Absolutely broken damage dealer)
Sorcerer-Arcane trickster (Spell artillery)
Eldrich scoundrel (conjurer- debuffer)
Vivisectionist ( my healer)
Squishy as hell, in a kill or be killed way, but there were few enemies in the dungeon able to land more than two hits before being killed (if they manage to do that at all). I had to buy divine scrolls and use magic device. to cure sometimes or fighting the bosses.
Just have to recruit a cleric or a bard (Archeologist to follow the rogue theme. Sadly no backstabbers here) for protections and that´s it.
What you describe there is fine, but what is not fine is that traps and monsters suddenly and inexplicably appear in places that were safe ten seconds ago. That's cheating. There are other instances of this in the game, too, but I chose that as the most obvious one, because I was pretty sure that people would recognize it.
Besides, in practice, much of what you describe there requires the kind of (meta-)knowledge that you gain by trial and error, i.e. reloading your save. Again, that's not a problem. But the cheating is, it's a real biggie. In table-top RPG terms it's the kind of thing that makes a GM lose his group of players, because nobody likes a cheat.
Sorry, but why do you need to reload or meta-game to see that you can jump the wall behind you(using the show button), sneak, or fight? When you regain control you are not fighting, you can sneak and explore (and find the invisibility potions) before making a decision of what to do. ¿? She even tells you that it is a trap
And as said before, there are portals that teleported the monsters. The redcaps could be setting traps while you are talking to Nyrissa. The time does not stop when you talk...
I'm close enough to end that I will make sure I finish but restartitis is definitely present!
Trouble is after playing kineticist anything else is going to feel so useless. I loved Sword Saint but that's going to feel hopelessly weak now (what do you mean I have to roll to hit?! Why am I doing 20 damage to one opponent instead of 200 to everyone?!)
Yep, you officially ruined the game for you starting with the kineticist
Jokes aside, there are fun classes in the game that do not rely on dealing tons of Aoe damage.
I'm actually considering a dual wield knife master for my next run. They seem fun
I found the thugs even more fun. It is really something see 75% of the enemies run in fear every time you do a dazzling display or kill something with a cornugon smash. And as a rogue you kill a lot.
ed: I like knife masters too, but I have nok-nok to play one. The guy makes me laugh a lot.
Knife masters and Thugs are both fun. I think Thug provides a bigger advantage, since knife master will only average out to about 1 extra point of damage per sneak attack die, but it does add up. Depends on what kind of build you're wanting, so if you're not interested in dumping points into charisma and persuasion and investing in feats like dazzling display, it may not be worth it. I had started an Aldori Defender/Thug/Sword Lord, and when I did a dazzling display at the start, the stag lord and most of his cronies took off running and Amiri and I killed the Stag Lord right off the bat with attacks of opportunity before he could do anything.
I am not really a fan of the Monk-dragondisciple-frenziedBerserker multi-builds, to be honest, but it seems very strong.
I usually do not take more than 2 or 3 classes, unless I am playing NWN.
I prefer to have full sneak dice or caster level instead of multiclassing.
Knife masters and Thugs are both fun. I think Thug provides a bigger advantage, since knife master will only average out to about 1 extra point of damage per sneak attack die, but it does add up. Depends on what kind of build you're wanting, so if you're not interested in dumping points into charisma and persuasion and investing in feats like dazzling display, it may not be worth it. I had started an Aldori Defender/Thug/Sword Lord, and when I did a dazzling display at the start, the stag lord and most of his cronies took off running and Amiri and I killed the Stag Lord right off the bat with attacks of opportunity before he could do anything.
Seems a powerful character.
I am partial to slayer-thug instead. You have the full sneak attack dice and you get all the feats you need if you pick the "Combat style: menacing" even if you do not meet the prerequisites.
You do not even need high charisma if you use "Intimidating prowess" because you use str to intimidate. Nothing stops you from backstabbing using raw physical power, so you can go full Str with medium-heavy armor as a slayer. They do not lose their abilities in full armor: You still are able to use quarry, studied target, dazzling display, etc.
I am not really a fan of the Monk-dragondisciple-frenziedBerserker multi-builds, to be honest, but it seems very strong.
I usually do not take more than 2 or 3 classes, unless I am playing NWN.
Knife masters and Thugs are both fun. I think Thug provides a bigger advantage, since knife master will only average out to about 1 extra point of damage per sneak attack die, but it does add up. Depends on what kind of build you're wanting, so if you're not interested in dumping points into charisma and persuasion and investing in feats like dazzling display, it may not be worth it. I had started an Aldori Defender/Thug/Sword Lord, and when I did a dazzling display at the start, the stag lord and most of his cronies took off running and Amiri and I killed the Stag Lord right off the bat with attacks of opportunity before he could do anything.
Seems a powerful character.
I am partial to slayer-thug instead. You have the full sneak attack dice and you get all the feats you need if you pick the "Combat style: menacing" even if you do not meet the prerequisites.
You do not even need high charisma if you use "Intimidating prowess" because you use str to intimidate. Nothing stops you from backstabbing using raw physical power, so you can go full Str with medium-heavy armor as a slayer. They do not lose their abilities in full armor: You still are able to use quarry, studied target, dazzling display, etc.
That's true, you could rely on intimidating prowess and push it even further if you went with half orc. It is another feat you have to take, though. I don't think slayers get full sneak attack, don't they only get it every 3 levels starting at 3rd level? You could compensate a bit with accomplished sneak attacker, I guess, but yet another feat to invest. It, or Ranger, does seem the way to go for a strength based dual wielder, since you don't need to meet the dex requirements for the two weapon fighting feats.
Trying to not read all your posts to avoid spoilers, but I can't avoid reading some of it, hehe..
Killed the troll king just now. It was.. easy. Easier than I had thought, but perhaps I was a bit overleveled from doing many sites before it. I was level 7 and got level 8 when he died. Brought Harrim, but damn that dwarf is going to get a stabby-stabby in the backside soon, hah! He's so gloomy and annoying (but with that said, he's well-written and interesting!).
Funny was, killing the trollking I felt kinda powerful. My team was pretty good, even though I had traded Trist for Harrim just for the ruins, but the next site I visited (Dappled Quagmire) I got my ass handed to me very quickly! So, skip that one and let's go someplace else. Maybe the verdant chambers next, let's see.
Respecced for the last time. It annoyed me for some time that I kept losing caster levels with my 3 level dip in rogue, so after a few hours of player building, I ended up with 1 level monk for flurry and the rest in Vivi. So with flurry he get's 3 attacks base and another bite attack with feral mutagen, so four attacks that procs sneak attack per round and it's less feat heavy than dual weilding and also I get the higher caster level from more levels in Vivi. Ah well, nothing is perfect but now I will just roll with it. Since I can haste as well I get a good amount of APR.
Amiri is barb2/twohanded fighter 6 and is dishing out the pain. Still not sure whether or not cleave is really worth it, but vs trolls it has proven effective since her cleave auto-kills all downed troll using the trollslayer axe. tried having her use fullplate for some time but she's so slow in it and twohanded fighter doesn't get armor training as other fighters it seems, so traded back for a mithril breastplate.
Val is straight up fighter still and will remain that for a while. I should probably have dipped once into the CHA monk and then took Crane, but I ended up just using feats instead for that.
Linzi is straight up bard and will remain that until level 11 I think for +3 songs. After that, perhaps dip into vivi or whatever I feel like. Let's see. Don't want DD on her, but maybe I will find something fun for her like eldritch knight or whatever. All she needs for that is Martial Weapons feat.
Jubilost is straight alchemist. I want Rapid Bombs on him asap. Level 8 IIRC, then he's gonna go down the dualwield feat chain to remove the negative effects from it. Some old forum posts seem to say rapid shot doesn't mix with fast bombs, so not sure yet if it's worth it or not. His bombs are really great and have been a blessing vs all trolls.
Gonna switch back to Trist now. He's gonna get the arcane/divine prestige class (forgot its name). It's probalby not so good, but I want to try it out. Choose empysorc for the animal companion (mastodon) and he's a buff bot, tossing out mage armor on all squishies from his arcane spells and ofc healing a bit. His healing is now weaker due to my MC of him, but let's see.
Found an amazing bow so getting curious on trying out Ekun more now, but don't know who to trade out. i don't want to trade out anyone! But he has the same role in a team as Jubilost I guess, so let's see. Maybe I'll keep for another run some day.
Wouldn't high charisma be useful for all those diplomacy checks tha hapeen during the game?
I used this build in the DLC but I think you may need a companion for those high persuasion and bluff checks, as any other class non-charisma-based, but you have persuasion as class skill so low persuasion checks you can do.
With intimidating prowess, you use str to intimidate plus cha modifier if you have one, so you will be able to pass any intimidate check ingame. You will have far more skill in intimidation than a pure dex-based thug, that was the point of the build.
I am not really a fan of the Monk-dragondisciple-frenziedBerserker multi-builds, to be honest, but it seems very strong.
I usually do not take more than 2 or 3 classes, unless I am playing NWN.
Knife masters and Thugs are both fun. I think Thug provides a bigger advantage, since knife master will only average out to about 1 extra point of damage per sneak attack die, but it does add up. Depends on what kind of build you're wanting, so if you're not interested in dumping points into charisma and persuasion and investing in feats like dazzling display, it may not be worth it. I had started an Aldori Defender/Thug/Sword Lord, and when I did a dazzling display at the start, the stag lord and most of his cronies took off running and Amiri and I killed the Stag Lord right off the bat with attacks of opportunity before he could do anything.
Seems a powerful character.
I am partial to slayer-thug instead. You have the full sneak attack dice and you get all the feats you need if you pick the "Combat style: menacing" even if you do not meet the prerequisites.
You do not even need high charisma if you use "Intimidating prowess" because you use str to intimidate. Nothing stops you from backstabbing using raw physical power, so you can go full Str with medium-heavy armor as a slayer. They do not lose their abilities in full armor: You still are able to use quarry, studied target, dazzling display, etc.
That's true, you could rely on intimidating prowess and push it even further if you went with half orc. It is another feat you have to take, though. I don't think slayers get full sneak attack, don't they only get it every 3 levels starting at 3rd level? You could compensate a bit with accomplished sneak attacker, I guess, but yet another feat to invest. It, or Ranger, does seem the way to go for a strength based dual wielder, since you don't need to meet the dex requirements for the two weapon fighting feats.
Yeah, sorry, I meant you have the full amount of sneak of the slayer class, as opposed to take levels of fighter or ranger. Pure Rogues have 9d6(+acomplished sneak) at lvl 18, slayer-thugs 5d6(+acomplished sneak) at the same level. You also do not have access to the advanced rogue feats as a slayer, but you have more HP and a solid warrior hit rate and damage output with studied target+quarry. I had a party with a Thug-slayer and a knife master so I could compare both.
Slayers level up with full BAB (plus studied target), armor proficiency and d10 HP dice and they are better suited to this role of a strong frontline backstabber IMHO. You can demoralize and fight with a high damage output (sneak attack+studied target) and high hit rate (full BAB and studied target+quarry .Quarry also gives you and your party automatic confirmed crits against a target) ED: i forgot: You also invest in str to intimidate and to hit and you need power attack so you can use two-handed weapons to improve the damage bonuses of high str.
The build is not for a rogue, is more a fighter in medium/heavy armor that can backstab and use frightening -cornugon smash-dazzling display to instill fear in your foes.
Before the DLC I tried swordlord-thug but when the slayer class came I found out that this packed more punch, albeit swordlord have impressive defense measures.
Feats are not really a problem, even as a half-orc or half elf ( I prefer this because you can have skill focus: persuasion for free. that is +3 to all persuasion checks and +6 at level 10. With this and intimidating prowess you can safely dump cha to 10 to boost STR)
You have feats every 2 levels like the fighters plus the ones that you gain every 3. The combat style menacing also allows you to pick the feats you need without the prerequisite feats. You also need levels of thug so you can also mix and match to get more rogue skills if you want.
Comments
The dragon talks about being afraid to go into the dungeon because he might be overcome by the spawn like the other bosses. He was right.
I'm frankly astonished by the designers' decisions here.
There have been a couple of precursors to this in the game. The most obvious and blatant example was the first trip to the Verdant Chambers, the one you have to do alone in order to meet the Guardian of the Bloom. That encounter was blatant and shameless cheating: once you arrive in the courtyard and put things in motion with the tree, the whole scene changes and there are traps and monsters in places that were safe before, just like that.
My RPG and cRPG experience goes back to the 1980s, and I'd say it's a pretty iron-clad rule that you just don't do that. The GM or DM must never cheat to kill his/her players (what would be the bloody point?), and the computer must play fair. But with P:K, it doesn't.
I was also extremely disappointed that even though I had personally killed a certain undead companion, that same undead was brought back (how?) in the House and proceeded to kill my main priest companion. Nothing I could do about that. And although the priest's corpse was quite clearly lying there, it was impossible to bring it back. Again a note to the developers: don't do this. (This actually turned out to be one of the things I googled, just to understand why it happened. Apparently it happened because my alignment is neutral. If I had been good, things would have been different, although my choices would have been exactly the same. D'oh.)
All 3 were referred to in encounters within the House (Jaethal with Tristian) but they weren't actually there! I somehow got their equipment (mainly all the gear I had given to Nok-Nok) but the companions themselves weren't visible. That's a bug I suppose, only companions who are actively part of the group should be referenced I think.
With regard to Ravaged Capital: I think there should just be one map across which the Apology fragments are scattered, fight the scouts and archers with some ambushes as well to clear that. Then second map should be a large battlefield with an epic fight to really round things off before facing the Lantern King. At the risk of possibly making it too difficult:
2 x Wild Hunt Monarchs
10 x Wild Hunt Scouts
10 x Wild Hunt Archers
6 x Vilravens (or whatever they are called)
2 x Lesser Jabberwock Shadows
1 x Greater Jabberwock Shadow
Shade of Nyrissa
Shade of the Knurly Witch
Shade of the Wriggling Man
(The last 3 have all the powers their individual encounters had, with maybe some additional shade-type powers like better DR vs energy attacks)
Now that would be a memorable encounter. A but like the Ascension ToB fight, albeit here you still have the Lantern King to come.
Not saying that it's a bad idea, mind you.
I actually like that encounter. The change of the tone of Nyrissa, from the damsel in distress to blatant villain, the deadly ambush set in motion while she escapes...
And you know, it is a trap, she wants to kill you. IMHO she did it well, but not enough.
The devs surely put you in bad odds: Surrounded by enemies, away from your allies, trapped in a dead magic zone... but also gave you options to overcome it.
First, they do not attack you directly, so you have time to prepare (what an ambush!)
You can fight the enemies there (they are conveniently separated one from another),
you can sneak past them or
you can simply climb the wall and escape only fighting only a few easy enemies like the wolves if you made two skill checks. Then you can come with your full party and clean the area.
There are some encounters in the game that seem strange choices for a level design but this one? I think it is pretty well made, it is one of the quests I enjoy a lot.
And also it is optional, you do not have to do it to finish the chapter and continue with the story. I remember I skipped entirely until they fixed the dead magic bug.
Besides, in practice, much of what you describe there requires the kind of (meta-)knowledge that you gain by trial and error, i.e. reloading your save. Again, that's not a problem. But the cheating is, it's a real biggie. In table-top RPG terms it's the kind of thing that makes a GM lose his group of players, because nobody likes a cheat.
No, is not. You saw portals before. And the quest is "optional", makes sense that an Nymph would try to kill someone that way IMO.
As for the whole nymph thing, it beggars belief but I'm willing to suspend my disbelief because that's just how it goes. In other words, if the nymph can use portals and summon monsters like that, she should be able to easily kill the player no matter what. But then, since the player doesn't have a kingdom at that point, it actually wouldn't make sense to kill the player anyway. The game is full of rubbish writing, but I'm willing to let it go. I mean, the dialogue is so poor that I wonder if it's a parody or not. I'm still not sure.
The Verdant chambers also has a couple of invisibility potions on the map, hint, hint. Normally I've picked up a couple before then, though. I also don't see the problem with her being able to conjure traps and have you not see it. She is an ancient and powerful fey. You also have the barony, so it'd be good enough if she killed you, it was good enough when you killed the stag lord and he was just a bandit lord. Reasons she didn't kill you herself could be she needs to get back to preparing the bloom, she feels you're so weak you don't warrant her personal attention, she might be forbidden from directly killing a lord herself unless her life's threatened, or she doesn't care enough to expend much effort since she thinks she can kill you whenever she wants but decides to use you as a foil against Irovetti and this encounter was just a test to see if you could stand up to him. The motives of ancient fey are mysterious. It could also be she's just a bit crazy after living in torment for so long. At least she didn't explain her whole plan and let James Bond escape the death trap
Trouble is after playing kineticist anything else is going to feel so useless. I loved Sword Saint but that's going to feel hopelessly weak now (what do you mean I have to roll to hit?! Why am I doing 20 damage to one opponent instead of 200 to everyone?!)
That's sort of like how I generally don't take Nok-Nok or play a dual wielding sneak attacker myself, since they're just overpowered in this game. I enjoy the game far more without them and wish sneak attack was more balanced. I do sometimes miss the crazy damage floats, like multiple 75 damage with -2 strength damage each flying by, but it's a more interesting game without that.
It can be 2 levels with accomplished sneak attacker, but it won't get crazy like Nok-Nok gets after around level 10 when he's got like 4-5 attacks and 5+ sneak attack dice. I don't consider it being overpowered like a dual wielding rogue gets. Of course he's great when you're still learning the game and don't know where everything is since he can ginsu anything.
Slayer+thug (Frightening-dazzling- cornugon smash is your friend.Full STR. 1 lvl thug is enough)
Knife Master (Absolutely broken damage dealer)
Sorcerer-Arcane trickster (Spell artillery)
Eldrich scoundrel (conjurer- debuffer)
Vivisectionist ( my healer)
Squishy as hell, in a kill or be killed way, but there were few enemies in the dungeon able to land more than two hits before being killed (if they manage to do that at all). I had to buy divine scrolls and use magic device. to cure sometimes or fighting the bosses.
Just have to recruit a cleric or a bard (Archeologist to follow the rogue theme. Sadly no backstabbers here) for protections and that´s it.
ED:
Sorry, but why do you need to reload or meta-game to see that you can jump the wall behind you(using the show button), sneak, or fight? When you regain control you are not fighting, you can sneak and explore (and find the invisibility potions) before making a decision of what to do. ¿? She even tells you that it is a trap
And as said before, there are portals that teleported the monsters. The redcaps could be setting traps while you are talking to Nyrissa. The time does not stop when you talk...
Yep, you officially ruined the game for you starting with the kineticist
Jokes aside, there are fun classes in the game that do not rely on dealing tons of Aoe damage.
ed: I like knife masters too, but I have nok-nok to play one. The guy makes me laugh a lot.
knife master/paladin/monk/vivisectionist
I can't find a single role playing excuse for this build but the math is very convincing
I usually do not take more than 2 or 3 classes, unless I am playing NWN.
I prefer to have full sneak dice or caster level instead of multiclassing.
Seems a powerful character.
I am partial to slayer-thug instead. You have the full sneak attack dice and you get all the feats you need if you pick the "Combat style: menacing" even if you do not meet the prerequisites.
You do not even need high charisma if you use "Intimidating prowess" because you use str to intimidate. Nothing stops you from backstabbing using raw physical power, so you can go full Str with medium-heavy armor as a slayer. They do not lose their abilities in full armor: You still are able to use quarry, studied target, dazzling display, etc.
That's true, you could rely on intimidating prowess and push it even further if you went with half orc. It is another feat you have to take, though. I don't think slayers get full sneak attack, don't they only get it every 3 levels starting at 3rd level? You could compensate a bit with accomplished sneak attacker, I guess, but yet another feat to invest. It, or Ranger, does seem the way to go for a strength based dual wielder, since you don't need to meet the dex requirements for the two weapon fighting feats.
Killed the troll king just now. It was.. easy. Easier than I had thought, but perhaps I was a bit overleveled from doing many sites before it. I was level 7 and got level 8 when he died. Brought Harrim, but damn that dwarf is going to get a stabby-stabby in the backside soon, hah! He's so gloomy and annoying (but with that said, he's well-written and interesting!).
Funny was, killing the trollking I felt kinda powerful. My team was pretty good, even though I had traded Trist for Harrim just for the ruins, but the next site I visited (Dappled Quagmire) I got my ass handed to me very quickly! So, skip that one and let's go someplace else. Maybe the verdant chambers next, let's see.
Respecced for the last time. It annoyed me for some time that I kept losing caster levels with my 3 level dip in rogue, so after a few hours of player building, I ended up with 1 level monk for flurry and the rest in Vivi. So with flurry he get's 3 attacks base and another bite attack with feral mutagen, so four attacks that procs sneak attack per round and it's less feat heavy than dual weilding and also I get the higher caster level from more levels in Vivi. Ah well, nothing is perfect but now I will just roll with it. Since I can haste as well I get a good amount of APR.
Amiri is barb2/twohanded fighter 6 and is dishing out the pain. Still not sure whether or not cleave is really worth it, but vs trolls it has proven effective since her cleave auto-kills all downed troll using the trollslayer axe. tried having her use fullplate for some time but she's so slow in it and twohanded fighter doesn't get armor training as other fighters it seems, so traded back for a mithril breastplate.
Val is straight up fighter still and will remain that for a while. I should probably have dipped once into the CHA monk and then took Crane, but I ended up just using feats instead for that.
Linzi is straight up bard and will remain that until level 11 I think for +3 songs. After that, perhaps dip into vivi or whatever I feel like. Let's see. Don't want DD on her, but maybe I will find something fun for her like eldritch knight or whatever. All she needs for that is Martial Weapons feat.
Jubilost is straight alchemist. I want Rapid Bombs on him asap. Level 8 IIRC, then he's gonna go down the dualwield feat chain to remove the negative effects from it. Some old forum posts seem to say rapid shot doesn't mix with fast bombs, so not sure yet if it's worth it or not. His bombs are really great and have been a blessing vs all trolls.
Gonna switch back to Trist now. He's gonna get the arcane/divine prestige class (forgot its name). It's probalby not so good, but I want to try it out. Choose empysorc for the animal companion (mastodon) and he's a buff bot, tossing out mage armor on all squishies from his arcane spells and ofc healing a bit. His healing is now weaker due to my MC of him, but let's see.
Found an amazing bow so getting curious on trying out Ekun more now, but don't know who to trade out. i don't want to trade out anyone!
Good times.
With intimidating prowess, you use str to intimidate plus cha modifier if you have one, so you will be able to pass any intimidate check ingame. You will have far more skill in intimidation than a pure dex-based thug, that was the point of the build.
Yeah, sorry, I meant you have the full amount of sneak of the slayer class, as opposed to take levels of fighter or ranger. Pure Rogues have 9d6(+acomplished sneak) at lvl 18, slayer-thugs 5d6(+acomplished sneak) at the same level. You also do not have access to the advanced rogue feats as a slayer, but you have more HP and a solid warrior hit rate and damage output with studied target+quarry. I had a party with a Thug-slayer and a knife master so I could compare both.
Slayers level up with full BAB (plus studied target), armor proficiency and d10 HP dice and they are better suited to this role of a strong frontline backstabber IMHO. You can demoralize and fight with a high damage output (sneak attack+studied target) and high hit rate (full BAB and studied target+quarry .Quarry also gives you and your party automatic confirmed crits against a target) ED: i forgot: You also invest in str to intimidate and to hit and you need power attack so you can use two-handed weapons to improve the damage bonuses of high str.
The build is not for a rogue, is more a fighter in medium/heavy armor that can backstab and use frightening -cornugon smash-dazzling display to instill fear in your foes.
Before the DLC I tried swordlord-thug but when the slayer class came I found out that this packed more punch, albeit swordlord have impressive defense measures.
Feats are not really a problem, even as a half-orc or half elf ( I prefer this because you can have skill focus: persuasion for free. that is +3 to all persuasion checks and +6 at level 10. With this and intimidating prowess you can safely dump cha to 10 to boost STR)
You have feats every 2 levels like the fighters plus the ones that you gain every 3. The combat style menacing also allows you to pick the feats you need without the prerequisite feats. You also need levels of thug so you can also mix and match to get more rogue skills if you want.
I had tons of fun with this one.