Extremely spiky damage

[Noddy]

I'm new to Pathfinder, but played a lot of Icewind Dale, Baldurs Gate, Planescape, Pillars etc.

I'm really trying to get into this game but I'm finding the combat extremely frustrating. It seems like even just basic enemies have the ability to 1 hit even my tankiest party members. It often feels like they just miss miss miss until they land a hit that either instant downs someone or puts them so low on health that I can't possibly recover it in time (not with methods I have the gold to use at least), and I have to camp after every few encounters.

For instance, during the tavern fight a Deskari guy crit me for 65. That's more than 2x the health of my tankiest party member.

I'm at the Tirabade Residence now and an Entranced Fighter just hit me with a normal hit with a Rapier for 23 damage (1d6+17). HOW THE ♥♥♥♥ DOES HE HAVE +17 DAMAGE!??!?! He does have a STR of 21 and was using power attack, but that's still well short of 17.

In short I am really not enjoying the combat. I'm playing custom difficulty with 1.0 damage to party and no enemy stat adjustments. But isn't that basically playing as intended? I had normal crits too but changed them to weak because it was just too absurd.

[Clown Fiesta]

just play on normal, even then every once in a while i had to adjust the difficulty to story mode to get through a mob or two.

Owlcat doesn't know how to balance their game, in their view hard = good. So whatever idea of a "normal mode" you had coming in, throw it out, because owlcat doesn't know what is balanced and what is hard - to them everything should be hard.

[Noddy]

Yeah this is a good start. I picked normal as my base and then changed a couple of things (like crits and damage to party to normal/1.0, no modifiers to enemy stats). I've adjusted them now back to how they are by default on normal, and it honestly hasn't made it feel much better yet but I'll keep at it for a bit longer. I just don't understand how anyone can enjoy this style of combat. How on earth am I meant to heal during a fight when i can restore like 2-8 health but they are dealing 20+ each attack. And if I cast a healing spell that's an attack of opportunity which is probably dealing 3x more damage than what the spell would heal anyway. I love difficult games, but not like this.

[Kafik]

This game truly is unbalanced. Buff all my casters as much as possible, try to use crowd control, AOE is utterly useless at low levels. Levels 1 to 10 shouldn't take a week to get through because of unlucky rolls and overpowered enemies.

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

I have around 130 hours in the game, i'll try to help.
I too started with the games you mentioned 20+ years ago. I can give you some tips, since the combat is extremely different. The game isn't unbalanced, you just need to be familiar with the Pathfinder system and/or have a bit of patience in learning at the beginning.

-Play with turn based mode enabled (the little tower icon on the bottom left of your screen)
-Always boost spell penetration with your initial feats on you main casters.
-Sneak attacks are extremely powerful and kinda needed on at least two characters in you party. So for instance, if you picked Wenduag at the beginning, get immediately 3 levels in vivisectionist and get her rapid shot through combat tricks when you level up.
-A simple grease spell drastically changes any fight if well positioned. Conjuration in general is a fantastic school with awesome spells that ignore magic resistance. So consider grabbing a couple of feats related to conjuration on a spellcaster (not Nenio, she goes full illusion).
-Early game Ember's hex "slumber" is very powerful, allowing you to use a fullround action to execute a coup de grace on a sleeping enemy, almost always killing him. It at the very least disables problematic targets for a few rounds.
-Early game, before you explore a new area, go through your scrolls and potions. A simple barkskin spell, or a bear endurance and so on can make your main tank really durable.

Out of curiosity, what class is you main character?

[Whitemane]

Originally posted by Kfuk:

This game truly is unbalanced. Buff all my casters as much as possible, try to use crowd control, AOE is utterly useless at low levels. Levels 1 to 10 shouldn't take a week to get through because of unlucky rolls and overpowered enemies.

Sadly its an issue with pathfinder somewhat, If you do not know the system pretty well ( and no its NOT the same as BG1 & 2 ) you are going to have a bad time. Anything above normal without either spending time learning the system and what works is going to lead to the above.

Personally I would say no AoE is definitely NOT useless at low levels you don't really get your first to lvl5 ish depending on class. Also considering the number of resistant Enemies I would strongly suggest taking an Element Ascendant ( ignore elemental resistances ) on one of your arcane casters.

[Noddy]

Originally posted by Gregor Eisenhorn:

I have around 130 hours in the game, i'll try to help.
I too started with the games you mentioned 20+ years ago. I can give you some tips, since the combat is extremely different. The game isn't unbalanced, you just need to be familiar with the Pathfinder system and/or have a bit of patience in learning at the beginning.

-Play with turn based mode enabled (the little tower icon on the bottom left of your screen)
-Always boost spell penetration with your initial feats on you main casters.
-Sneak attacks are extremely powerful and kinda needed on at least two characters in you party. So for instance, if you picked Wenduag at the beginning, get immediately 3 levels in vivisectionist and get her rapid shot through combat tricks when you level up.
-A simple grease spell drastically changes any fight if well positioned. Conjuration in general is a fantastic school with awesome spells that ignore magic resistance. So consider grabbing a couple of feats related to conjuration on a spellcaster (not Nenio, she goes full illusion).
-Early game Ember's hex "slumber" is very powerful, allowing you to use a fullround action to execute a coup de grace on a sleeping enemy, almost always killing him. It at the very least disables problematic targets for a few rounds.
-Early game, before you explore a new area, go through your scrolls and potions. A simple barkskin spell, or a bear endurance and so on can make your main tank really durable.

Out of curiosity, what class is you main character?

Yeah the new system is definitely a factor. I haven't even fully figured out the UI yet. i still only have 5 party members too. No idea when I'll be able to get a 6th. I wanted to hire a merc but it costs more than I've made all game.

-I've been doing this a bit but its very time consuming. I'll try using it more.
-Ahh ok, I've been trying to reduce complications by just sticking to 1 class for everyone so far.
-I don't even have grease so far, only have Nenio, Camilla and my main for casting. Hopefully I find another caster soon.
-Have heard a few people mention Ember is found early but I'm 16+ hours in and no idea where she is hiding. Maybe its time to look up a spoiler for this.
-I've been trying to do this as much as possible, but good potions are expensive and I'm already dirt poor. Hopefully soon I'll be able to start crafting them. Doesn't seem like I can do that yet.

Main character is Inquisitor with maxed wisdom. Think I should have min-maxed him a bit more in retrospect. Didn't realise it was gonna be such an unforgiving experience on normal.

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

Use turn based for difficult fights, it's not mandatory for every single fight (also remember that for setting up sneak attacks you can delay turns on the top of the screen, so you can wait until an enemy is flanked in melee).

"Dipping" is advisable. For instance, you want 3 levels of Vivisectionist on Wenduag and the Accomplished Sneak Attacker feat down the line when you go back to fighter.
Camellia is mainly a tank (not an arcane caster) and should stick to her main class, grab defensive spells such as barkskin and feats related to her rapier (and defensive hexes such as battle and the one that gives you +2 AC). Nenio is a pure illusionist but the good illusion spells come a bit later. Fill her slots with grease, glitterdust, create pit, it will drastically change your fights.
Ember is in the initial area, Market square, bottom right corner of the map. She's a good addition simply for her slumber hex.
For moneymaking always always always grab masterwork weapons and composite bows, it's 100 gold each. Also, at the tavern in act 1 buy the small bag of holding from the innkeeper when you have the money, it's a very handy items to have to reduce general encumberance.

Inquisitors are not easy to build since they are a bit of an hybrid class and a new one at that if you're used to traditional D&D. If you need help, just google "pathfinder inquisitor handbook", the first links (rpgbot) provide a small guide on how to build an effective inquisitor. You also don't need to restart. In the Inn next to where Irabeth is, there's a pathfinder society guy that allows you to respec your characters for free for the first few times, just select the option that you need some training.

[Noddy]

Thanks for the tips, I'll go grab Ember now. I've been picking up all the 100gp items but still feel very poor. How do you normally set up sneak attacks? Use Mobility to move your tanks to the rear of the enemy? And yeah think I'll probably need to find some ideas how to build my main character.

[Edstyles]

Get boar or dog animal companion . Easy way to get through early game. Get some1 that can buff them with mage armor and shield maybe. Can easily get 30 plus ac in the early lv and cc with trip

[🌍 CoMaNdRGhoST]

I agree, both Pathfinder games are so imbalanced and the "pick your own difficult level" makes it even worse and the game meaningless. DoS and PoE are so much better here

[Hunny]

Originally posted by Noddy:

How do you normally set up sneak attacks? Use Mobility to move your tanks to the rear of the enemy?

I think just having two melee characters attack the same mob will result in flanking and therefore open up for sneak-attacks. I am not sure as none of my characters have sneak-attack yet bar the thief that I do not use.

[Noddy]

A lot of things happen in fights that just don't get explained too. For example I'm fighting a Succubus in turn based mode and Camilla uses a Scroll of Inflict Moderate Wounds:

The log says I succeeded my defensive casting check, used the item, removed the item, and lost the item, but it didn't do anything? There was no difficulty check to cast it and there is no mention of trying to pass the touch roll or any damage. It just seems to have literally done nothing?

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

You probably didn't pass the spell resistance check and it just failed to notify that. Most likely solution.

Anyways flanking just requires two characters in melee with someone. Summons are good too.

[Noddy]

Ah ok that would explain it. Weird that it doesn't tell me though when it does for other stuff. This succubus fight is another good example of the poor balance. She has 29 AC so basically can only be hit by nat 20s (although I snuck in a couple earlier when my buffs were still up). The tooltips say to use touch attacks, but I don't have many and to use them I have to:

-Take an attack of opportunity
-Possibly pass a difficulty check
-Overcome spell resistance
-Actually hit them with the touch attack

To do just a very small amount of damage. And that's all assuming its not a touch attack using cold, acid or fire, because she ignores 10 damage of each. Very frustrating and poor design for this early in the game IMO. I'm used to having fights like this in other CRPGs, but never this early when you don't have the tools to deal with it.

Edit: The rolls seem seriously rigged too. She just scored 2 20s in a row (one a crit as an attack of opportunity), where I haven't had one from 5 party members this entire combat.

Edit: She just got another crit while I'm usually getting <5. Something is seriously ♥♥♥♥♥♥ here.

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

You mentioned a succubus, so i'm guessing you're in Irabeth's house in act 1? That's a hard fight.

Melee touch attacks are ass, you're not supposed to use them at all except for very specific builds and classes. What the game tells you is to use *ranged* touch attacks. For instance, with Woljif you can apply sneak attack damage through ranged touch attacks (if the appropriate circumstances are met, so either at the start of the combat when an enemy is flat footed, so if you act before it, or if the enemy is engaged in melee by 2+ characters, or if blinded by effects such as glitterdust, and so on).

I personally don't think it's a poor design choice. Elemental damage is weak at the beginning, it's supposed to be weak, that's why spells that have the "force" type are considered strong (magic missile, battering blast, etc). For inexperienced adventures a succubus is supposed to be a hard fight.