Balance is still crap

[alandarkworld]

Pathfinder: Kingmaker is such a wonderful game. The graphics, the world, the wealth of detail, it truly has a lot going for it.

Then you randomly encounter some were rats (RATS!!!) in a cave with a level 5 party. Those creatures have a total defense rating of 28. TWENTY-EIGHT for crying out loud!! On a fancy rat! My best fighters need to roll a 15 or higher to even hit these bastards.

I gave up on the "normal" difficulty for my own sanity's sake, now I'm playing with "weaker enemies" - only to find this. I know the rules, I know what I am doing, I've finished Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale, you name it. But this is frankly absurd.

[Black Lotus]

>wererats in cave.
This not a crap balance but a feature.

[=[NK]= Col. Jack O'Neil]

They're buffed to hell. Before you enter the cave a bell goes off. If you rest after that bell goes off they're unbuffed and much easier to kill!

[alandarkworld]

Say WHAT?! How am I supposed to know that?

[Divolg]

You are not suppose to kill everything and everyone the first time you stumble upon the encounter, just return one or two levels later.

[Macros]

Originally posted by alandarkworld:

Say WHAT?! How am I supposed to know that?

You can deduce it, by the fact that you know they are aware of you coming, and by the fact that at least one of them starts the game with a few visual spell effects active.

Plus, to be honest, I've never understood the outrage that some seem to feel that yes, you can meet a few enemies that are rather overleveled at some points of the game. I always found it more weird that you only meet perfectly balanced encounters as you progress, with enemy CR always roughly matching you somehow.

That being said, 28AC at level 5 isn't really overkill, though it makes for a challenging encounter. Your own tank should be better protected than that at that point.

[Lane]

Originally posted by Macros:

Originally posted by alandarkworld:

Say WHAT?! How am I supposed to know that?

You can deduce it, by the fact that you know they are aware of you coming, and by the fact that at least one of them starts the game with a few visual spell effects active.

Plus, to be honest, I've never understood the outrage that some seem to feel that yes, you can meet a few enemies that are rather overleveled at some points of the game. I always found it more weird that you only meet perfectly balanced encounters as you progress, with enemy CR always roughly matching you somehow.

That being said, 28AC at level 5 isn't really overkill, though it makes for a challenging encounter. Your own tank should be better protected than that at that point.

You don't need to deduce it, you can outright hear the bell ring. Plus if you have perception high enough you can see the bell trap.

[=[NK]= Col. Jack O'Neil]

Originally posted by Lane:

Originally posted by Macros:

You can deduce it, by the fact that you know they are aware of you coming, and by the fact that at least one of them starts the game with a few visual spell effects active.

Plus, to be honest, I've never understood the outrage that some seem to feel that yes, you can meet a few enemies that are rather overleveled at some points of the game. I always found it more weird that you only meet perfectly balanced encounters as you progress, with enemy CR always roughly matching you somehow.

That being said, 28AC at level 5 isn't really overkill, though it makes for a challenging encounter. Your own tank should be better protected than that at that point.

You don't need to deduce it, you can outright hear the bell ring. Plus if you have perception high enough you can see the bell trap.

I had pretty high perception, and MMMUULTIPLE quick loads and never once seen the trap :\

[James Bondage]

Sometimes you run into encounters that are at or above level-appropriate CR. They have some pretty good loot for a ~5th level party, too, so they /shouldn't/ be pushovers. Also, the key part of the name is "were", not "rat". Three Wererats is a CR5 encounter, meaning that a decently specced party of six 5th level PCs should have an even fight against them. They had enhanced gear so it was probably a bit higher.

Not to mention that they're just sitting in a wholly optional cave.

[alandarkworld]

Originally posted by Imperial Guardsman:

Sometimes you run into encounters that are at or above level-appropriate CR. Not to mention that they're just sitting in a wholly optional cave.

Fair enough. Still feels embarrassing to have my party defeated by some random rats, "were" or not. I wouldn't mind if it were werewolves or vampires or dragons or something *actually* dangerous.

Originally posted by Imperial Guardsman:

Three Wererats is a CR5 encounter, meaning that a decently specced party of six 5th level PCs should have an even fight against them. They had enhanced gear so it was probably a bit higher.

How do you achieve such a "decently specced party" in this game? I've been asking this very question to myself a lot lately. The party members you meet in the story could not be further away from what I would call "optimized". I've found an option to hire custom characters (I believe; haven't tested yet) but it's really expensive. Respec is only possible with mods as far as I know, please correct me if I'm wrong.

[EvilDonut]

Whoever says this game is not unbalanced has clearly never played the PNP, and therefore their opinion is worthless.

[Fionn Mac Cumhaill]

Originally posted by EvilDonut:

Whoever says this game is not unbalanced has clearly never played the PNP, and therefore their opinion is worthless.

This is blatantly true. This game deviates from the PNP pretty damn hard to up the challenge. I know why, I understand why, but that doesn't excuse them for not adding a "Core Rules" mode where you get the monsters' actual base stats and not some inflated mess. I know they bumped up the stats specifically because some people know how to munchkin Pathfinder in ways their DMs and party members will frown on them for, but still, it means a lot of builds in this game become straight-up traps as a result.

Add on copious bugs and you get even more of a Frankenstein's Monster out of the balance. Last I checked, Ecclesitheurge features still aren't working, and they're an archetype that was released with the game, and a companion archetype on top of that. The last two acts are still horrendously buggy months after release, and the stat inflation present in the game makes that all the worse. This is a game that starts off incredibly strong, but then whimpers and crawls to the finish line, and the balance and bugs are primary culprits, in addition to some questionable decisions toward the end of the game (decisions you made earlier lead to permanent deaths of companions you may have sunk a lot of time and money into at the most critical time to have them... yeah, that seems good. Couldn't kill them earlier or anything and have the drama surrounding it be just as strong, have to wait until the last second when the hardest, and least-balanced, fights are present). The potential here is amazing, but potential unrealized is just as valuable to an end-product as potential that was never there to begin with.

That's kind of my review of the game in a nutshell. It has a lot of potential, but it's akin to an incredibly large diamond 15 miles below the surface: Yeah, sure, it's there, but right now we have no way of really seeing it to fruition, and a lot of small patches scratch at the surface and show earnest care but if the results don't work out, then you still didn't get the diamond, now did you?

If anyone is curious and tries looking it up, my copy of Pathfinder: Kingmaker is on GOG rather than Steam, so you won't find it on this particular account.

[zaknafein196]

I killed those rats, it's not an easy fight, as long as you buff yourself like crazy. And put communal fire protect, you should be fine. To be fair it is an optional fight.

[Erikkustrife]

Originally posted by alandarkworld:

Originally posted by Imperial Guardsman:

Sometimes you run into encounters that are at or above level-appropriate CR. Not to mention that they're just sitting in a wholly optional cave.

Fair enough. Still feels embarrassing to have my party defeated by some random rats, "were" or not. I wouldn't mind if it were werewolves or vampires or dragons or something *actually* dangerous.

Originally posted by Imperial Guardsman:

Three Wererats is a CR5 encounter, meaning that a decently specced party of six 5th level PCs should have an even fight against them. They had enhanced gear so it was probably a bit higher.

How do you achieve such a "decently specced party" in this game? I've been asking this very question to myself a lot lately. The party members you meet in the story could not be further away from what I would call "optimized". I've found an option to hire custom characters (I believe; haven't tested yet) but it's really expensive. Respec is only possible with mods as far as I know, please correct me if I'm wrong.

In Pnp I have lost 6 seperate parties to were-rats and non to the other were creatures. Were-rats are party killers. Their low cr monsters that absolutly wreck a party and even if you do win, the hard part comes after, you have most likely ended up with an entire party thats infected from just one attack and thats game over.