Is This Game Balanced Around Munchkin Builds?

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

I know that the Pathfinder system itself encourages munchkin character building - it's infamous for it.

But a game can either balance it itself around the median, or it can balance itself so that munchkin builds are the minimum requirement.

So, my question is does the default difficulty ('normal') assume that everyone is building munchkin characters?

[Col. Closeup]

Short answer: No

Longer answer: Since part of your companions have a very weird stat distribution for their class to begin with (looking at you, Ember) and their subclass choices can be suboptimal for some party compositions, you'll do perfectly fine on normal with a... well, "normal" build. The game DOES encourage you to buff before hard fights or when you know you're gonna be facing a certain type of hazard (Kingmaker had the infamous House at the End of Time with all the Wild Hunt characters, for example).

[Adeptus Stark]

Originally posted by Col. Closeup:

Short answer: No

Longer answer: Since part of your companions have a very weird stat distribution for their class to begin with (looking at you, Ember) and their subclass choices can be suboptimal for some party compositions...

I never understood how these games like this have NPC's that are basically randomized generator stat/ability/feat/class characters. This is not an Owlcat issue but the majority of all these tabletop RPG's turned to PC games have characters in them that no one would build and use in a table top game.

I'm not saying NPC's should all be min/maxed but at least have some sort of flow with what the characters stats reflect on how they would be as a PC. No problem if you make a character bad at swinging a sword as a fighter if you at least explain it through the characters in game story like a PC would. They just make NPC's suck at their given class but give no reason why other than what can only be seen as a lack of understanding the gaming system. (Even though they're the devs :P)

My 2 cents.

[zero]

short answer: no, munchkings tend to do everything they can to avoid the story and solely look to win.

it undoubtably helps to minmax your build though.

[Indure]

I've played through the first 2 acts on "normal" and "core" (3rd highest difficulty). I found that normal is typically a cake walk for average builds. There were a couple of tough fights where the right buffs or a quick inspection of an enemy was needed to figure out why previous attempts were failing. Core on the other hand, has been quite challenging with a heavy need for prebuffing, smart character creation and lots of enemy inspection and turn-based mode needed.

I just fought some demon at level 7 that had an AC of ~40 and a hit chance of roughly +18. It took everything I had to hit it and if it hit any of my characters it was basically an instant KO.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by Indure:

I just fought some demon at level 7 that had an AC of ~40 and a hit chance of roughly +18. It took everything I had to hit it and if it hit any of my characters it was basically an instant KO.

That's the sort of thing I'm trying to avoid.

[Marcos_DS]

Game expects you to use cleric and wizard spell buffs (or potions) before hard (end-boss) fights and use equiplment appropriate to the current level. As long as you do that, you will be fine with unoptimized (but well-played) single class builds.

You cannot just rush into a boss fight and expect to win if you don't at least prepare a bit, maybe use some summons etc.

[Indure]

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

Originally posted by Indure:

I just fought some demon at level 7 that had an AC of ~40 and a hit chance of roughly +18. It took everything I had to hit it and if it hit any of my characters it was basically an instant KO.

That's the sort of thing I'm trying to avoid.

As long as you don't play on the harder difficulties it is easy to avoid.

[Drake]

Originally posted by Tom:

Originally posted by Col. Closeup:

Short answer: No

Longer answer: Since part of your companions have a very weird stat distribution for their class to begin with (looking at you, Ember) and their subclass choices can be suboptimal for some party compositions...

I never understood how these games like this have NPC's that are basically randomized generator stat/ability/feat/class characters. This is not an Owlcat issue but the majority of all these tabletop RPG's turned to PC games have characters in them that no one would build and use in a table top game.

I'm not saying NPC's should all be min/maxed but at least have some sort of flow with what the characters stats reflect on how they would be as a PC. No problem if you make a character bad at swinging a sword as a fighter if you at least explain it through the characters in game story like a PC would. They just make NPC's suck at their given class but give no reason why other than what can only be seen as a lack of understanding the gaming system. (Even though they're the devs :P)

My 2 cents.

They're not bad, have you seen bad chars ? As far as I'm concerned I never saw some 5 or 6 on an NPC in a video game. It's rare if they get even a single 8 on a dump stat. On the other end, with the dice roll creation on pnp, I've seen unlucky bad rolls, and people playing them.
While they're not in the metagaming range, the npcs here are average good. Don't forget that an average normal person is represented as 8 in all stats.
Having a fighter with 14 or 16 is str is athletic good, while 18 is borderline superhuman.

Their stats are very similar to what you would get with the diceroll generation system (on an average good roll), since nowhere it's stated that you have to use the buy point for npcs.
Maybe they just did that, rolled a char and then built a story around that.

Plus don't assume no one would build "strange" characters. I do that all the time, even on pnp, it's way more fun, otherwise you always pick the same feats, stat distribution etc. because of the meta rule that says that one feat is best so by definition all the 1000 others are trash and your don't even need to look at them, there is no hierarchy.

You would be surprised at how fine it is, unless you're playing on unfair, but what's the fun in that (not saying unfair isn't fun on a tactical scele, but having to forget 80% of the content because it doesn't work on unfair isn't really fun, you pretty much know from the beginning what's going to happen, you either pick a good build and pass the game, or you don't and you'll wipe eventually).

If I want to play games with metagaming in mind I open path of exile and theorycraft a build.
And if I want a party built adventure where I control the whole party generation, I'll pick a game that doesn't have premade npcs, like icewind dale, or recently solasta (the solasta party concept with each char generating its own dialog option depending on alignement, skill and background is very clever, people should definitely copy that stuff).

[lemurs2]

If you play on regular difficulty than you will be fine, I abhor munchkins and I play challenging.
But, yeah, anything harder and you would need to munchkin.

[EasternTime]

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

I know that the Pathfinder system itself encourages munchkin character building - it's infamous for it.

But a game can either balance it itself around the median, or it can balance itself so that munchkin builds are the minimum requirement.

So, my question is does the default difficulty ('normal') assume that everyone is building munchkin characters?

You probably already saw my answer in other topic, but I'll repeat. No. This game is very playable on Normal if you have an idea of what you're doing or at least prepare before harder fights.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by EasternTime:

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

I know that the Pathfinder system itself encourages munchkin character building - it's infamous for it.

But a game can either balance it itself around the median, or it can balance itself so that munchkin builds are the minimum requirement.

So, my question is does the default difficulty ('normal') assume that everyone is building munchkin characters?

You probably already saw my answer in other topic, but I'll repeat. No. This game is very playable on Normal if you have an idea of what you're doing or at least prepare before harder fights.

I don't actually believe that though. Munchkin is baked into the Pathfinder system, and Owlcat seem to love to design that way. 'Normal' difficulty is for munchkin builds in P:K, so you really had to drop the difficulty down to get play anything else.

[EasternTime]

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

Originally posted by EasternTime:

You probably already saw my answer in other topic, but I'll repeat. No. This game is very playable on Normal if you have an idea of what you're doing or at least prepare before harder fights.

I don't actually believe that though. Munchkin is baked into the Pathfinder system, and Owlcat seem to love to design that way. 'Normal' difficulty is for munchkin builds in P:K, so you really had to drop the difficulty down to get play anything else.

If you don't want to change your opinion, then why are you asking?

[Sambonizer]

Originally posted by EasternTime:

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

I don't actually believe that though. Munchkin is baked into the Pathfinder system, and Owlcat seem to love to design that way. 'Normal' difficulty is for munchkin builds in P:K, so you really had to drop the difficulty down to get play anything else.

If you don't want to change your opinion, then why are you asking?

Because he simply wishes to ♥♥♥♥♥ and whine.
The guy is basically the resident troll.

[lemurs2]

And I just said I hate munchkin and I play 1 step above normal.

[Drake]

Originally posted by pandariuskairos:

Originally posted by EasternTime:

You probably already saw my answer in other topic, but I'll repeat. No. This game is very playable on Normal if you have an idea of what you're doing or at least prepare before harder fights.

I don't actually believe that though. Munchkin is baked into the Pathfinder system, and Owlcat seem to love to design that way. 'Normal' difficulty is for munchkin builds in P:K, so you really had to drop the difficulty down to get play anything else.

I played the normal difficulty on my first run with as main char : a melee 2H elven curved blade elf sorcerer with undead bloodline, and it wasn't even dex based (don't ask, my chaotic neutral chars get special attention when I make them).
I built my npcs according to their roleplay backgrounds, so regongar had some barbarian and then dragon disciple levels. Octavia did some bard fire dancer dipping, I can't even remember what I did to harrim (I know I didn't dice roll his feats but that wasn't far off), jaethal stayed full scythe inquisitor. The best char on the team was pretty much nok nok because of his OP stats (the only reason he was on the party was because he was a goblin and I had a CN monster kingdom since I sided with the trolls, kobolds, mites, goblins etc.).

I did the game just fine, you just have to get some items, buff yourself and abuse the pause. I also play pathfinder pnp, and I usually do the same stuff there.

People are pigeonholing themselves for no reasons, because they think dps is the only solution to everything, it's not. Good tactics and the use of control abilities and items are.

It's like on tabletop, in my PF2E group I always have to remind people that stuff like feint, demoralize, grapple, trip, diversion etc. exist and 3 actions doesn't mean 3 attacks per turn... you have to think ahead so that your party members have it easier.