Second try
Ok, so almost 2 years later, I'm going to give that game another try. First time I tried it, I found it extremely slow in its movement, like characters moving in jelly. Also, combats were either too easy or too hard, even on the same map, with no warning. Finally, I found the system overly complex, with punitive choices and clearly bad feats, while having waaay too many options.
This time, I'll be playing on a high end computer, so I expect the slowness to disappear. I also play in normal mode, not hard, to enjoy the story more and get to understand the system a bit more. Let's see what this game really is about.
While it's installing, I'm reading some guides, to theorycraft what I'd like to play.
I like this Fey Lord archetype. Very charismatic, very fey-like, fits in the wilderness style, that could be the main character doing the talk and leading the group.
I also love the idea of a Dwarven Defender tank as the heavy armored Dwarf in the front line, with a Death Knight friend to help. They would be the front-line to tank mobs.
In support, I would have a duelist Sword Lord. Maybe a full Support Bard? And a Running Damage Dealer? A range Arcane Trickster? A very good archer? A massively powerful mage?
Here we go. I took normal difficulty, but with reviving dead characters at end of combat, and removing negative effects as well.
Here we go! So, how am I gonna play my fey gnome. I want to play it a bot aloof, like he prefers nature than civilization and isn't very much to think too much about morality. He has this weird, twisted, Fey mentality of just wanting to have fun, making jokes and doing pranks, not realizing how dangerous or even lethal they can be. I can definitely see him use a lot of Illusion, lying and using Hideous Laughter.
I still love this reference.
So... at least now my characters are moving at normal speed. This is going to make the game more fun to play. The system still has a lot of moving pieces, so will take a while to understand, but I've read enough Pathfinder scenarios and listened to enough Glass Cannon Podcast that I think I can understand.
I have a spell that can Dazzle for 1mn but I don't know what it means. And another spell, actually called Daze that prevents attacking for 1 round.
I am getting confused. I can see Lizzi has 5 spellls in her hotbar, but I can find only 4 in her spell book.
The last one has its description truncated, so I'm trying to see how I can read it.
I'm now at Oleg's camp. The game seems way easier than on my first try. Combats are very easy; I mean so far I've just been on auto-pilot and didn't really had to think much. Characters hits; enemies die. Easy.
I have now thought a bit more about how I want to play, and I've been thinking of a thematic group. I'll change my main Character to a Death Knight (an Eldritch Scion level 20, focused on Undead). It will synergize well with Jaethal as a full tank (Inquisitor and Tower Shield Specialist and Stalwart Defender), as she is undead.
I'll also turn Harrim into a Necrolord, to stay in the same idea of playing around undead. He will be a full Cleric, so both offtank and possibly some summons. Finally Amiri as a Beast Lord, with her animal companion, for some high DPS (weird mix of Barbarian, Sacred Huntsman, Ranger and Two-Handed Fighter). It does completely fits in the theme, but I can try, and she is some easy DPS for now, until I understand the ropes of the game better.
Finally, I'll probably hire a mercenary to act as my rogue, maybe a Treasure Hunter or some kind of Arcane Trickster.
Say hi to Gorash. I envision him as having lived a near-death experience and living through it. Maybe he was supposed to have been killed in a fight of his past mercenary group against good aligned guards, and he died there, but actually didn't really died, and survived, and is now obsessed with death and undeath.
So, I moved in turn based mode. It makes everything much less confusing. I can now see what takes a full round action, a standard, a move action, etc. I'm already familiar with those terms a bit, but now I can better understand how it works.
I also did cast a spell while in touch range, and it triggered opportunity attacks. Which is ok, but I didn't know that (in 5E AoO only trigger if you move away from an enemy space). But as it's a touch spell, does it mean I'll always get a AoO when trying to cast it?
I'm trying to make Amiri Rage, but it seems I cannot. Is it because she is engaged in combat?
Hmm, turn based mode makes everything way clearer but combats seem to last longer and I can really feel when I'm missing. Maybe I'll need to make animations faster so it doesn't seem that long?
I have been using Jaethal as a tank, and most attacks miss her, but she still doesn't have much HP. She still has AC of 19 which isn't too bad.
My tank died, and when trying to heal her, I cast Channel Positive Energy, that actually healed all the bandits as well as my characters. Not very useful. I need to understand how I can convert regular spells into Heal spells.
Ok, so one good thing about Enlarge Person is that I'm now so big I can attack people without being in Melee range, so I can move away without AoO and cast spells as well. This is pretty good.
Hmm, Spell Combat from my Magus says I'm supposed to be able to attack at -2 and also cast a spell. I'm not sure how to do that in the UI.
Amiri is a force of nature. Enlarged she could move everywhere and one-shot almost anyone.
Meet Shana, a mercenary thief I just recruited. She'll help in getting those loot from people that doesn't want to depart from it.
Now, I'll level up everyone to level 2, and start to get a better feel of the whole group.
It's amazing how this little maps remind me of so many memories from BG1.
Hmm, I do not understand the damage she did. I understand the 2 points of damage (bad roll on a d8), but what is the 1d3-1? My dagger is dealing 1d4, and even if I take the -1 from STR, as it's a Finesse weapon I would have assumed a +4 DEX instead. Also, where is my second, off-hand attack?
I have switched back to real time. Seems waaaaay easier. Enemies just die before I could even react, while turn based is way longer and way harder.
I managed to kill the swarms with the Everburning Torches I bought back from Oleg, with the money I got when leaving the cave. Weirdly enough, it seems that I can loot everything from an area when I leave it, even if I didn't find the corpses. I was able to loot a very expensive weapon (for my level at least), that I could sell to buy the torches, that allowed me to defeat the monsters that were guarding the corpse that had the weapon in the first place. So I basically came back to kill the swarms, but didn't gain anything, as I had already looted the corpse.
Let's see if I can do the Thorn Ford thing.
Trying to understand why I can't charge. Charge is supposed to be twice my movement and attack. Kressle is in range, I have a full round action to do that, but I can't. Is it because there are obstacle on the way? (Edit later: It's because I was Fatigued.)
I also tried a Ray of Enfeeblement on Kressle. +1 BAB, +1 DEX (because range attack), +1 Bless, but -4 because shoot into combat‽ Won't I always be shooting into Combat? My Magus doesn't have a good DEX (+1 only) so those range spells will often hit, and having only 3 of those per day I would prefer to cast Enlarge Person which can't fail.
Also, it has some touch attack but I will incure AoO if I do, unless I find the right spot.
Hmm, I can select but not click. What is going on? Why can't I attack that archer?
Seems like my Smilodon can attack 5 times if attacking the same target as Amiri, or maybe only because it's in Amiri's range, and because she is Enlarged her range is bigger?
Oh, no that might be that as a standard action it can only do one bite attack, but as a full round action it can do its 5 attacks.
Fuck, I can't heal Jaethal with Healing Potion, nor Cure Light Wounds. As my main Tank that's a bummer.
Ok, I could make her take a 5" step to move away from reach, then cast Inflict Light Wound, which actually healed her. I just hope now the bandits will keep focusing on her.
A bandit, with a Longbow, tried to hit me while Amiri and Smilodon were in range. It triggered an AoO; actually, two. They both resolved before the bandit could deal its damage. Even if the bandit was technically dead after Amiri's hit, Smilodon also attacked (wasting an AoO) and the bandit attacked as well (even if he should have been dead).
This is a weird mechanic, but one I need to be aware of. I can use that at my advantage, to move away from enemies, to trigger all their AoO at once. And to get close to range attackers with Amiri.
So, that x2 means Shana will be able to do 2 attacks, because it's her full round action and she is dual wielding. It has nothing to do with the Sneak Attack.
First attack missed. I had +2 because Flanking; I'm not even sure why, maybe because my target was in the overly large Reach of Amiri? Also Masterwork is +1 to hit, good. Still, I missed.
Now, second attack hits, with a natural 20. But I still need to confirm the thing, which I didn't. So there is a two step process for Critical hits, which won't happen often I guess. But still, I hit. I think because I hit, it added the Sneak Attack damage, probably because I'm flanking. But I don't understand the 1d3--1 thing.
Ah, it seems that Halfling decrease the size of dice, so 1d3 rather than 1d4 when using a dagger... Also, in Pathfinder, Finesse make you use DEX to hit, but still STR for damage, unless you have Weapon Finesse as a Feat. I guess most of my damage will come from the Sneak Attack thing, then.
Hmm, there seem to have been a glitch. Jaethal attacked, Kressle attacked as well, then "Round 2" started and its there turn again. Maybe I glitched the thing when I moved from turn-based to real time? I feel Jaethal is gonna act too much now.
Wait, what? Amiri shot with her Composite Longbow and did 2d6+4 Damage? But a longbow is supposed to be onloy 1d8? What I seem to understand is that the +4 is coming from +3 from her STR bonus and +1 because of Rage. Composite Longbows use STR rather than DEX. Then the 2d6 rather than 1d8 might be due to Enlarge Person. It should increase the character size by one step and probably that d8 should be transformed in d10. Not sure why it becomes 2d6 instead. Maybe Barbarian increase damage step by default?
I also understood why she couldn't Charge. She was Fatigued. Not sure why, but that makes sense.
Love how they re-used the look of the guy from the original book.
I found a chest, but I failed picking it. I tried casting Guidance and trying again, but it was too late, it seems I can only do one attempt per level. Shana seems to be the only one with Trickery as a class skill, so that's probably why she's the only one able to test. I couldn't find a way to break the lock with Amiri either, though.
Jhod has an inventory worthy of one of the richest people on Golarion. 99 Diamonds? I don't understand why the bandits didn't rob him.
Wait, what? How am I supposed to get through AC 33?
I tried to Cure Light Wound it, but I even missed the touch attack.
Oh, I know what to do against it! F9! I might come back later.
Shambling Mound. Ok, I can probably do that with kiting. Ok, it worked, but with only one survivor...
And with that I'm levelling up. My main character is getting Resist Cold 5 (ok-ish) but also DR 5 / Magic, which means I cancel all first 5 damage of piercing/bludgeoning/slashing damage, except when dealt with magical weapon. This is pretty good against all mundane enemies.
What, Oleg now has STR +2 items, while I'm only level 3. Ok...
Apparently, I can try disarming traps over and over again until it works. But I can't do the same thing with closed locks. There is a logic here that escapes me.
This Old Sycamore dungeon is an XP farm. I moved from Level 3 to 4 pretty easily there. All trash mobs (even the giant spider and centipede) that I could steam roll an auto-play. The Kobold boss was long but easy, but the Mite Queen was hard.
Haha, nice banter.
I'm also checking on conditions:
- Dazzled means the target can't see straight, and has -1 to hit and perception. Pretty small.
- Dazed means can't stand right, can only do either movement or standard, loses DEX AC and can be hit with Sneak Attack, pretty good.
- Fatigued does -2 STR and DEX, can't charge, moves more slowly. If fatigued again, because exhausted (-6 rather than -2).
This spells can Dazzle, after a Will save, and only creatures of 4 HD or less. As I don't know how many HD creatures have, really, I think I'll pass. Especially now I'm level 4, I would expect creatures to also be in that range.
I also tried the Resistance cantrip. I can cast it on everyone, so everyone gets +1 to saves. Except those that already have a Cloak of Resistance as it's already giving a Resistance bonus that doesn't stack. Ok, so useless cantrip at this level.
Light has limited use. Useful in dungeons, but I already stole Valerie magical lantern, so Jaethal has light by default. Also, weirdly enough, only one character can have Light active at a time.
Demoralize allows setting an enemy as Shaken, which means -2 to hit, saves and skills. With a specific Feat it also makes them susceptible to Sneak Attacks, which could be interesting.
Coup de Grace allows me to auto crit a target that is Stunned, or Paralyzed. I should try it with Hold Person.
This has to be done on purpose!
Such a common phrase everyone says often.
I like it when Amiri crits.
Apparently, a wand of True Strike only uses an Standard Action, while casting True Strike itself is a full round action? Or did I remember that wrong? If it's the case, I'll definitely need to find a way to recharge that wand. Being sure to hit with Amiri is very good.
I managed a Hold Person, now I can Coup de Grace him? I had to disable auto-casting of my Bleeding Touch, so my equipped weapon is a melee one though. It did 11 Damage.
My enlarged Gorash did much more though. 2d6 + 11, x3 because critical. 2d6 because I'm enlarged, so my 1d8 weapon becomes 2d6 I guess, and the +11 is also because of the buffs.
When comes his turn, he fell because he failed the Grease save. This remove the Paralysis. So Hold Person lasts until the turn of the affected creature, not the turn of whoever cast it. So if I cast it right before the target, it's useless.
But when he got up from Grease, we could all do AoO and kill it. Grease is pretty good I must say. Very powerful, but also double edged. I think I understand the appeal of a trip build, when you put enemis prone, and can hit them when the get up as well as when the fall.
Wow, almost any trash mob had a ring +1 and a clock +1?
Also, two of my characters are slow. The dwarf, Harrim, and the Halfling Shanna. I also feel like Harrim is useless, so I'm thinking of dumping him. Especially now that I can afford many healing potions, and that I even found inflict wound potions for Jaethal. I also wanted to hire another mercenary in place of Shanna, one with better skills focused on ranged attacks, but it costs 8000 gold pieces so far, so I'll wait a bit.
Let's say Harrim is on probation. I like the concept of a necrosummonner and off tank but he's doing neither of those so far.
The Stag Lord wasn't very hard. The Boggarts I killed in the Swamp were way harder. This one I could just stay away, and kill his guards one by one. Then I got in melee with him and his bow didn't do much.
It's really weird how you can try disarming traps over and over again, but for locked chest, you have one try and it's done, you can say goodbye to good loot. Of course, this can be bypassed by quick save and quick load, which makes it moot. Just like in real P&P, if you have a good loot or a clever trap, don't hide it from the PC, show it to them.
The summoned Skeletons were really good against the Insane Dryad. They had Piercing damage reduction so the thorns didn't affect them much, and there are 5 of them, they could disrupt her casting.
Nice damage from my main character. That's Frigid Touch, with Cold Arcane Weapon enabled, and a Masterwork Longspear on top.
I have a +10 to hit. The Masterwork cancels the Power Attack malus, and then I add my STR, +2 for Flanking and +1 for Bless.
Then one damage I think is the spear itself. It's supposed to be 1d8, but because I'm enlarge it goes up to 2d6. The +11 I still do not understand. +5 of STR for sure, but the additional +6? There is +2 from Power Attack (and +1 because Power Attack with a two handed weapon). That's still +3 that I don't know the source of. Oh, there is the +1 from my Arcane Weapon Enhancement. That's still again, those +2 to damage that come from I don't know where. Maybe it's due to the difficulty settings.
And then the 4d6 are coming from the Frigid Touch.
Amiri also does some impressive damage. The +1d6 precision is because she is attacking the same target as an ally (her companion) with the same feat. I should probably give the same feat to my tank, so we all benefit from +1d6. The 3d8 is because her sword is 3d6, with the Enlarge it's 3d8. +10 is 5 STR, +1 Weapon, +2 Rage and again, the unknown +2.
Something a bit unsatisfying about the game is how you can go into some very small maps, that are just here for one combat encounter. You fight the monster, with no context as to why it was here, and move on to the next. I feel BG1 did that better. Many monsters had a reason to be somewhere, or they talked to you before attacking. Here there was a Greater Werewolf, and I had no possible interaction with him.
And the loot is a lot of +1 weapons and armor. No story about it, no special ability that does a little thing here and there (except on the Stag Lord boss). While people like Oleg have a full stock of +2 belts and headgear. I realize I like games that offer a lot of different loot. But Kingmaker really delivers on the Classes and Feat side. There are so many of them. This can even be intimidating, as it costs a lot of money to respec, so you don't play along with various classes that much (while BG3 has it almost free).
What the fuck are those Rats I'm fighting? They have very high AC and in addition to that seem to have 10 DR?
Also, Immune to Magic Missiles?
That being said, they had great loot, those unnamed rats.
There was a Large Water Elemental in the next map. No explanation as of why. A dead dwarf next to it. Still, no explanation. Not even a river, or a temple nearby.
There was a long text, 2 checks, a use of my Rope; all of that to get 137 gp, a shortsword and a leather armor?
Ah, and an Emerald as well. That was a very weird interaction.
I encountered a Manticore. I did buff myself expecting a very hard fight, and it was dead before I could finish buffing. It's hard to gauge in that game what is going to be an easy or a hard fight.
Haha, I cast Grease in the middle of the room and I'm face against the floor for my own feast.
To long and prosperous years. And Grease!
And I assume this is the end of Act 1. If my memory serves, book 2 of the Adventure Path is some kind of sandbox with many encounters, and the underlying story is that there are enemies from neighboring lands that are trying to make my kingdom unstable?
Didn't I kill you? Oh, you're undead now?
I'm starting to have very slow game. Characters are moving slowly, and seem to lag. UI is pretty responsive, but loading times are getting worse and worse, and doing combat is very long and slow, everything moves slowly. I put graphics to a minimum, and still.
Now loading a zone seems to be taking minutes where it used to take seconds. I deleted save games. I removed a dll from the install folder, I tried different things but I have no idea where this is coming from. My connection? My windows guest machine?
I even loaded an old save, thinking it was something to do with the current area. And even here, the small critters that move on screen are moving very slowly, I can see them moving one frame at a time. What is weird is that the music doesn't lag. The dialog do not lag. But the rest of display does.
Feels like the more I play, the worst it gets. Now I need several seconds for a click to be registered, and several more seconds for the menu to open in response to that click. I'm going to test another game, see if the problem is there as well.
Ah ok, I'm loading Dishonored (which I played with no problem last week), and even the animations at the start of the game are laggy. So it has nothing to do with Kingmaker, but with my Windows machine.
I wondered if it was something to do with my connection, as I'm playing through Shadows, but everything seems ok on that side. But loading times, even on Dishonored are now very slow. So I assume it has something to do with the hard drive? As it's a cloud machine, I don't know how much I can debug...
I don't know if it's the HDD, or the RAM. Moving in Dishonored was really slow, like 1 could see frame by frame. I have no idea what is going on. As I'm not using Windows, I have a hard time knowing what to do.
So... I'll sleep on it. Maybe tomorrow it will work better?
Oh, I did some Windows Update, and now it's working again. I also updated Shadow, while I was at it.
Forgot to take screenshots, but I stopped by Candlemere, fought so pretty hard Will-o-Wisps and now am fighting some (way easier) trolls.
This area is an XP farm. Trolls are super easy to kill, and I get free XP by disarming all those traps.
I ended up level 7, in the Secluded Lodge. Got a whole lot of new abilities. Still thinking Harrim is pretty useless except for pre buffs, like Undead summoning or protection, but in a combat, he doesn't do much, I'll have to think about that. Shana is reliably doing Sneak Attack, but I should respec her to give her some bonus to hit at range.
I think there is some pathfinding (no pun intended) issue here, as I can fire arrows at the Owlbears without them ever moving toward me. I think they are too big to fit in the cracks between the tree and so they stay like sitting ducks owls.
240 XP each, doing nothing, I like that.
I've finally found a use to Harrim. Summoning many skeletons.
Hmm, there is a specter here. Everytime I kill it, it comes back. Doesn't give any XP, but still. Interesting place to just start a fight; I wonder if this can be used.
Ok, let's keep playing. I feel I'm getting out of the Low Level Hell. I'm leveling up pretty easily. Fights are still either too easy (don't even need to buff), medium (easy if I buff) or nearly impossible (need a specific buff for it to work, otherwise you can't do much).
I don't take much pleasure in theorycrafting builds in that game as I feel there are many ways to screw up builds, and respecs are very expensive. While in BG3 or even Pillars, I could spend hours only in the character creation screen. Here I mostly follow builds I found online.
I'll still keep playing because the game is still good, but I really don't put it at the same level as a Baldur.
I decided to save the Lizardfolk village THEN attack them all.
I don't really like that my Animal Companion got bigger, now he is often stuck in the background and can't join the fight.
I'm starting to having some fun. I'm now exploring all the small areas, I understood that each small area contains one single boss, almost no quest, so I know I can go there, buff, and kill the thing. Because the road to the next encounter is going to be long anyway I'll need to sleep before getting there.
I had a hard time against some tribe queen and king. But I managed to get them through a corridor of Grease and Stinking Cloud.
Almost killed the Hodag in one shot, then I did a second critical. Not sure why I gained XP three times, though.
I took (in real life) a few days of vacations, and during that time I did some theory crafting and I think I will reduce the team to a team of four. Harrim will become the main tank, replacing Jaethal, but keeping him as a Cleric (so he will use his spells to tank and heal rather and wait to vaguely heal Jaethal once in a while). I will also ditch Shana in favor of Octavia, and keep her as an Arcane Trickster, so she can deal Sneak Attack damage from range, and buff the team a bit.
But first, as respecs are expensive (8k IIRC), I'll need to progress a bit in the story.
For now, I've moved forward the Troll Trouble quest. Now, on to bringing back his whip to the demented wizard, and back in town to bring Jubilost in my team to move his quest forward by coming back here.
Oh? I did finish a major event? That's hard to tell in that game. Encounters in the main storyline seem to have low stakes sometimes, and random encounters are sometimes more deadly.
The mood of the River Kingdom, with its poverty and petty rivalry between states reminds me of the dark world of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I have been re-reading some of WFRP 1st edition scenarios recently, probably because of that.
It's an invisible wall. A vaguely fluffy invisible wall, but still an invisible wall.
Why, oh why would you make such a buffer empty zone if the only place I can go is that weird portal on the top?
Hmm, I'm fighting something with AC 36. I miss a lot, but she doesn't seem to do much to me either. Pretty long fight. Not sure how I can reduce her AC.
Ah, finally. No idea who she was, where I am and what the hell the story is around here.
This game does such a bad job at explaining anything.
Oh, did I mention I did not hide my camp nor add any guards? I want the random encounters!
I'm still not ready to increase the difficulty. The combats can be so challenging (read, frustrating) at times.
What is this new weird thing?
Oh, just feys making pranks.
And now I'm attacked by trees. Thankfully, I can block them in a bottleneck.
We killed a Ferocious Devourer. That was a hard fight, but once I managed to cast Displacement (50% miss chance) and Death Ward (Immunity to Level Drain) on my tank, it was long, but I finally got it through.
Seriously? I have been having this glowing "Bald Hilltop" on my map for months and couldn't find a way to access it. I thought it was here to tell me it's close to my keep, and I should watch out, but the road to it would be revealed later.
If I click on it, I even had this error message. I have been having ominous message that decrease my keep status several times. -2 here, -2 there. Told me I should do something about that Bald Hilltop and I was like "But I want to go there! Tell me when I can". Messages have been piling every single day, and I still can't get there.
And what happened is that there was a fork in the road, but one you couldn't see until you actually went there. So I spent months having this event fail for me, while I could have just walked there a while ago...
I have those quest logs, but I have no idea what they are talking about. Next development in 200+ days? What second attack stronger than the first? What first attack? What are they talking about?
Come one. Horde / Hoard. That's basic writing level.
Wow.
I did lose a fucking lot of points because of that weird bug. I have 0 Military and 0 Stability, all of that because there was no way to get to that area, even if I was waaaaaaaay early. I was just there, waiting in my capital, until a road appears, so I skipped time for months, all for nothing. Now I went there, and as the event seem to be finished, there is nothing I can do, except wait...
I'm done with this Kingdom Management thing; I'll make it in Auto
Hmm, that's a tough random encounter. 5 Manticores?
Well actually, 4 more came from the shadows. It was an easy fight. My party is well equipped and levelled now.
Hmm, apperently I need to come to Verdant Gardens by myself. But how can I disband my group?
This is so stupid. I have to be in the area on the first day of the week, but there is no indication on the world map of what day I'm at. The only indication is in a location, if you hover over the pause icon, and even that doesn't tell you how days are named. So you have to go to the overworld, move around, encountering random enemies, for about a week, until it's the right date...
All of that aggravated by loading times before and after the random encounters. Loading times, cumulated, might even be longer than the time to do the actual fight.
Interestingly enough, it seems to always be the same encounter, at the same place. A bunch of cultists.
Ah, the loading screen has changed. I think I'm on the right date this time.
What? Cultists of Lamashtu are being shown as male, not liking women, while Lamashtu is a female deity, embodiment of childbearing (albeit in a distorted form). This is weird writing.
This little filler scenario where we have to interrogate people from a lodge to find who is the hidden cultist is nice. Simple, but effective.
Wow, we're getting to new height of kingdom management uselessness now.
"You know, Lissa, my father always used to scold me, saying, 'Ivar, you shouldn't wag your tongue so much.' I never listened. Remember the Day of Matchmaking? The headman's son came to you, gave you those nice boots only city ladies wear, and his servants brought a barrel of honey and a crate of sausages. Then Mengar the Smith came — brought an ornate door casing, skillfully crafted locks, and piles of other housewares — and said he was going to decorate a house for the two of you with all he crafted. I came late in the evening, after all of them had left, and all I brought was a bunch of wild flowers. I set them on the porch and said, 'I saw a nixie crying in the forest. She'd planned to make a lantern of my heart, but she found my heart was already taken! It's bad fortune to make nixies cry, so Lady Lissa, would you go to the forest and give the heart you've taken to anyone who may need it more than you?'
You told me I was such a fool, and then you kissed me.
For our wedding, you invited your relatives, the old miller's widow, and stupid Aysel, the fisherman — out of pity, I suspect, as no one else wanted to spend time around him. I invited frogs, wind, and the full moon. 'Brother Moon,' I said, 'please be so kind as to share your light with everyone, for my bride tires of shining over this world alone.' The frogs sang along with Aysel, and you were more beautiful than the moon and more cheerful than the spring wind.
Arry was about to turn five and Mika was just four, and I'd spent a month dragging fish to the cliff and cursing a stupid wyvern who just wouldn't be lured. When I finally lured her, I chased her through the bushes, collecting her silver scales here and there after they fell. It wouldn't have been so hard to decorate our garden with those scales if I hadn't done it at night. Then the morning came, and our children went silent, their mouths agape — hundreds of silver lights sparkled atop apple and cherry trees. I hid my scratched hands in my sleeves and scoffed. 'This isn't so special — you've never noticed before how the stars hide in the trees from the cunning Sky Cat?' You looked at me without a word, but I could still hear your words in my mind. 'You're such a fool, Ivar. I love you.'
...I don't remember how I came up with the story of the Silver Dragon. I came home late with a black grouse I'd shot and said, 'It was a hard fight! I just couldn't aim properly. This dragon kept peeping out from the clouds, blinding me with his shiny silver wings.' 'You saw a real dragon, Dad?' 'Not the whole dragon, no. You see, the only way to see the dragon is if two loving souls climb up the high cliff under a new moon, hand in hand.' At the time, I wasn't thinking about how dark the night was, or how steep the path to the top of the cliff was — especially for little feet — or how wet the rocks were after the rain. I was just looking at you, wishing it was us — two loving souls, hand in hand, sneaking away up to the skies, as we did when we weren't that much older than Arry and Mika.
The next morning you woke first, and it was you who found our children's beds empty.
You said nothing to me then. Not then, not when we walked through the misty woods, not when we found Mika's doll at the start of the path leading to the cliff. You kept silent as I ascended from the chasm with Arry's body in my hands. You said nothing when Aysel brought Mika's body, found further out, at the lake shore near the cliff.
You're such a fool, Ivar. You wag your tongue too much. It was just a story, another of your stupid fairy tales, how could it end this way?!
I'm so sorry, Lissa.
Better you'd married the smith. Or the headman's son. Or even stupid Aysel. Anyone but me.
It's all my fault. Forgive me. Please.
And let me go.
Today, I'll go to the children's graves and…"
Wow. That is fucking well written. The Fey imagery, the creativity, the drop in emotions. Ok. This is the first thing I read that is fucking well written in that game.
Except that him spilling out his whole story in two gigantic wall of text, then turning into a werewolf (?) and attacking you is just classic weird Kingmaker that doesn't make any sense.
Hehe, that was good.
Yeah, sure. People that barely have enough to live are just casually putting a 4k magic frost scythe here.
Wait, also a 16k rarity, just casually forgotten
Nice node to the actual PF game. The background music is the actual Goblin song that have been in so many adventures.
I'm fighting a horde of wolves here. And they don't even give any XP.
Narrative invisible wall. Too bad, that was a good moral choice to have the MC do, but Kesten turns it into a simple choice.
Back to my capital, a giant owlbear, but died pretty quickly.
The "puzzles" in the Feywild seem to be completely random. I had to check an online guide to understand what I was supposed to do. And even with a guide I still did not make much sense of it. It looked like an old Discworld game interaction: pick bird, put bird on stone dais, sleep in camp, pick up seeds from bird carcass, put seeds in strange lake, pick up vial of poison from lake, put poison on flower.
And can we appreciate how the various alignment answer are just textbook alignment stereotypes. This is where you see the quality of the writing of a game like BG3.
I then had to split the party, but thankfully my main character magus can buff to become a tank if needed.
Wow, a tank that can deal some good damage as well it seems.
That chapter was very fast compared to the others. It was finished before I barely started it it seems. Maybe that's because I'm now casting Expeditious Retreat on Amiri when I get on a new map and have her run around and aggro everyone so I can mass murder them all at once.
Ok, well I guess now I need to play the DLV, Varnhold's Lot.
Here we go. This time I decided to play a Lawful Good Aasimar Divine Guardian (Paladin archetype). I want to play it as some kind of bodyguard for Maegar.
I also made a full team but that was a chore. I had Maegar already set as a Rogue 5 and Cephal as a Wizard 5, and now have to create 3 more level 5 characters, with so many choices, and having to think of covering everything I need. I think I ended up with a suboptimal party but let's see:
- Artemis is my main character, a Lawful Good Paladin that will act in tandem with Maegar, protecting him so he can Sneak Attack (at least, that's the idea).
- Elora is a Sylvan Sorceress. I picked her so I could have an animal companion and access to Haste. I tried to also build her so she could summon stuff into battle. Not so sure about her use apart from that.
- Herika is a pure Freebooter Ranger, I tried to make her useful from afar. I think she has some skills that work well in a team.
- Barbara is an Invulnerable Rager Barbarian. I was planning on having her move very fast and attack in melee.
I am now realizing I am missing a Priest. I will give this team a try and see if I can manage, but I think I will probably need to kick someone out and take a Priest, or respec someone. I actually realize that I really like my other team, with Harrim that tanks and has the right buff if needed, Octavia that can open any lock and do range sneak attacks and cast Haste, Ekunday that does reliable range damage, Amiri that does incredible spikes of damage and my own MC that can do damage, but also tank if needed.
Here, I'm a bit afraid that the Barbarian won't make a good enough tank, that the tank won't deal enough damage, that Maegar will be too squishy, that Cephal will only have one or two big spells, that Elora summons will be pathetic and that damage from Herika will be mediocre. Let's play and see.
Still, I must say the sheer amount of choice in classes and archetypes, the bad UI that doesn't give much info and the long list of feats that contains many "bad choices" really made creating a party of 4 a very unpleasant experience, while I usually LOVE spending hours in the character screen.
Also, why do I have to cross the whole map again... I took some feats on Barbara that should increase her move speed, I want to see how much it improves it, but if it's a lot I might just respec everyone to have that classes so everyone can move fast.
Did a first fight. Can say that the speed improvement of Barbara is awesome. I want a team that takes advantage of that. With a tank that can charge into battle quickly like this, or a ranger that could kite with such speed.
Also, I realize that no cleric means no healing. That is going to probably be a problem.
Well, out of combat, she doesn't move faster. So I need a multiclass with also access to Expeditious Retreat.
So far, the group has worked. A fireball in the Goblin group, summoning many wolves... so far it worked.
I finally restarted with a new group, by the way.
And you have to admit the sense of Diplomacy is very strong on that one. Really, the writing of that game is quite poor.
Oh, I think I misunderstand the dialog. I thought I had a choice between violence and peace, and I chose peace. But it was a choice between siding with one side or the other, so I kinda ordered one side of the village to kill the other side... my bad.
I then broke my alliance with the cultists to also atttack the centaur for the sweet, sweet XP. But somehow the game glitched, and even if I didn't kill the centaur chieftain, a cutscene triggered just as if I did, but she is still here, with a red circle.
A few cutscenes played, which allowed me to re-buff and attack her quickly. Somehow I couldn't kill all the other cultists and centaurs but that was so fun (my first glitch in the game!) that I kept it.
I hate it when storywriters do that. "There is no other way; we have to do XXX" while there is plenty of other ways.
That and the "Please, explain me again" when the plot becomes so complex the main characters have to lay it down in simple terms and say "we have no other choice, this is what we need to to" and the proceed to do it. You know you're in about the last third of the movie now, and this is the resolving act.
They forcefully remove the Rogue from the party and now are giving me three locked chests. This is very frustrating.
I then attacked a bunch of fey by blocking them in a doorway.
There were many more locked chests along the way. I don't get why they removed the rogue from the party and then give us many locked chests we can't open. This is so weird and frustrating.
I'm more or less in auto-pilot in this part of the module. The beginning had some kind of story, not extraordinary one, but good enough. Now, it's just weird rooms and monsters and I don't understand anything.
And everything is either a mimic and an ooze. It's getting old.
Here, what did I tell you?
When it's not attacking you, it's locked and you can't open it.
So he failed a spell and now is abandonning me here? How is he going to get away? I was warned teleportation spells do not work well in here.
Wait he just left? Like, I don't know where he is. And that means I'll have to finish this dungeon without my mage? Meaning with no Haste spell?
I kinda don't understand the idea here. First they forced two characters with unchangeable classes in my group. Then they remove them from my group when I need them. From a gameplay POV it is frustrating to have those choices forced on you twice. I can understand from a story POV both chars need to be in Varnhold for the main quest to progress, but it seems a bit too forced. As a DM, in a similar situation I would have warned the PCs that the two NPCs will have to leave the group at some point to maintain narrative continuity, and we would have been on board with that.
I picked a magical amulet, but because I don't have my Wizard anymore, with skills in Knowledge (Arcana) I don't have it identified anymore. This is another example of the skill tax. A skill you have to invest points on other you miss parts of the game. This is bad design IMO; if you design good magical items, you should identify them automatically to give to your party so they can use them.
Actually, now that I think of it, when I was playing BG1 as a kid, I found it great that I couldn't identify objects right away and had to have identify scrolls or pay 100GP, it made it more immersive to me. Now as an adult I'm like "Give me the thing, don't make me assign useless skills". I don't really know what to think anymore.
I like how old stuff has turned into rubbish, but candelabras still generate light.
Hmm. It seems I finished the DLC. I didn't expect it to be only one dungeon, from which I couldn't get out. All the loot I picked up, I couldn't even sell. All the magic item I picked, I couldn't event identify. That... was weird.
Back to the main quest I believe. I won't say I'm having a lot of fun in this game. I do want to finish it, just for the sake of completion. It is getting pretty easy now that my builds have come online, but the fights are still very binary. Either I have the right spells to protect myself from the right energy type, and fights are easy, or I don't and fights are extremely hard.
I don't feel much tactics, it seems way more binary.
There is a guy named Nober. I HAVE TO speak to him several time
Wow. I explored a room with one character, to not aggro everything. A "book cutscene" plays, that have me somehow flee that room, but when the cutscene ends, I'm back in the room. With all my party. And my two pets are somehow stuck one on top of each other and can't move...
I think I summoned a bit too many monsters here. But because I came in the zone through a Dimension Door, not all my characters are inside, and when teh one inside die, I can just wait a bit for them to come back, and die again. I wanna see if the monster end up out of spells.
Well, I think I'll end my playthrough here. I'm not having fun, and everything seems like a chore. I have leveled up twice recently, and didn't even bothered to actually hit the level up button because I wasn't challenged enough already, so with two more levels it would have been even easier.
Also, the level up screen is so intimidating, there are two many choices, and many are useless or irrelevant. I usually LOVE spending hours in a character creation or level up screen, but in this game, I actually dreaded the experience.
Story-wise, it isn't very interesting. You wander into zones that contain one enemy, you have no idea why it is here, nor what it is, no ecology of the monster, no foreshadowing, just one more bag of hit points to kill. Also, the movement on the worldmap is so slow it's tedious. And the kingdom management thing is pointless.
Most of the actually challenging fights are binary. Either I have the right spell to protect me (elemental protection, etc) and it's trivial, or I don't and I get one-shot. This has been mostly my experience from the beginning.
Any other spell seems situational, and the bonus are so small that it seems one needs to do a lot of finecky clickity dance to get the right buff in the right order to have a substancial bonus, and in that case some builds are overpowered. If you don't do the right dance, then you're weak and get killed. Really, I didn't enjoyed the balance of the game.
Low-level was kinda fun because it was brutal, and I needed to really maximize what my characters could do and synergize. Mid-level was a cruise, and where I am now is a chore.
So, I think I'll stop here. I don't really care for ending the story, as I do own the original Adventure Path that this is taken from and I've read them all. Usually in a game like this, when it's becoming too easy, I kick people from my party and continue until I'm running solo. But here, the binary aspect of the fights makes me really not want to do that.
So, farewell Kingmaker, you were fun while you lasted, and I did play a fair number of hours with you, but in the end, I ended up reading a book at the same time as I was playing, to wait during the long animations on the world map and loading screens.