Stolen Land

[Duder]

You have 90 days to complete this, is that enough time to take care of all the little errands along the way? Maybe some of them, or just focus on the main quest for now?

[Terra]

I did 90% of everything in the area accessible in Chapter 1, and clocked a little over 35 days. If I had gone a little bit harder, I could've done it in 30, easy.

90 is a TON of time. It doesn't feel like it at first, especially since it takes like... a day of travel time between wherever you're going and Oleg's, but as long as you're going out with a purpose in mind (and that purpose can literally just be "I want to explore that hill over th-oh no it's covered in manticores, let's go elsewhere") you'll do perfectly fine.

Once you get into the "main" game though, a good rule of thumb is to bumrush the main quest. It's different in the first chapter, since it ends as soon as you report that you smoked the Stag King, but the rest of the game runs off a timer and things get worse the longer you leave them. So get the main quest done first, and then build your kingdom in the downtime between main plot.

[Duder]

Originally posted by Terra:

I did 90% of everything in the area accessible in Chapter 1, and clocked a little over 35 days. If I had gone a little bit harder, I could've done it in 30, easy.

90 is a TON of time. It doesn't feel like it at first, especially since it takes like... a day of travel time between wherever you're going and Oleg's, but as long as you're going out with a purpose in mind (and that purpose can literally just be "I want to explore that hill over th-oh no it's covered in manticores, let's go elsewhere") you'll do perfectly fine.

Once you get into the "main" game though, a good rule of thumb is to bumrush the main quest. It's different in the first chapter, since it ends as soon as you report that you smoked the Stag King, but the rest of the game runs off a timer and things get worse the longer you leave them. So get the main quest done first, and then build your kingdom in the downtime between main plot.

Thanks.
Really my only issue with the game is no feedback on auto pause. Pillars had that, would be nice to know what triggered the pause instead of trying to figure it out in the combat log. Not a huge deal just ya know
I'd say the great thing about this game is the customizable difficulty settings, so many ways to make it harder. I was just going about on the hard setting, thinking it was already getting too easy however the spider cave made me eat my words. Or thoughts probably
Anyhoo

[Terra]

Yeah, the spider swarms are real bastards. Ability damage is a killer, especially early on when you don't have easy access to Restoration from one of your clerics.

They actually patched those swarms in particular. In the original version, they were in the entire cave and you had to deal with them to get the quest item. After a lot of people were like "this is really messed up for what is basically the first side quest", they moved them all to the back and hid a few +1 magical items back there.

...which is ironically worth about what a Lesser Restoration scroll will run you.

[Duder]

Originally posted by Terra:

Yeah, the spider swarms are real bastards. Ability damage is a killer, especially early on when you don't have easy access to Restoration from one of your clerics.

They actually patched those swarms in particular. In the original version, they were in the entire cave and you had to deal with them to get the quest item. After a lot of people were like "this is really messed up for what is basically the first side quest", they moved them all to the back and hid a few +1 magical items back there.

...which is ironically worth about what a Lesser Restoration scroll will run you.

I love a challenge. Some people whine about things being too hard in games, but I mean get better. I don't get how someone can play a game just winning all the time, breezing through it, that's boring for me.
I killed one of the swarms but ran out of flasks to throw at them
And like an idiot I dropped my other torch in the prologue

[Terra]

If your MC is a caster, you can hit them with your Ray cantrips. That's more or less what I had to do. Send Valerie in, pray to god she made the Fortitude saves, and have MC and another companion you can get in C1 hit them with Acid Splash.

The Spider swarms are particularly a problem since they're Diminutive, which means they're totally immune to weapon damage. Elemental is the only thing that can hurt them. Once you get a few +1d6 elemental melee weapons they'll melt, but when you're swinging a Masterwork at best those swarms might as well be immortal.

[tazman1]

the swarms are also pretty easy if you go turn based so you can move your party around without issue and throw acid flasks or alchemist fires. The best way I found for running the stag lord part is make Olegs a base of operations carry 20 rations on you every run. There is actually a guide show casing that and several locations you can go for XP. If your up for the challenge though you can pretty much survive if your smart about whats comming (save scum at Olegs) by just doing the quest locations as they appear.

This will make the stag lord tough but you can do it if you understand how your party is built.

[forkofspite]

If you know where everything is from prior experience, it's possible to do everything (exploring every path and completing every area) within 30 days.

Without pushing the pace and maybe some extra trips back to Oleg's, everything can pretty easily be done within 60 days.

Without knowing in advance - yeah, it might be difficult. As noted by tazman1, bring rations (I think 20 is too many, but to each their own). Also, make sure you actually use them when you camp (on the camp interface, you need to actually select the option to use rations). IN addition, you should still assign a hunter.

Otherwise, when you're just exploring, keep a save game slot. After finding where you want to go, you can reload it and find it more efficiently.

[Duder]

Originally posted by tazman1:

the swarms are also pretty easy if you go turn based so you can move your party around without issue and throw acid flasks or alchemist fires. The best way I found for running the stag lord part is make Olegs a base of operations carry 20 rations on you every run. There is actually a guide show casing that and several locations you can go for XP. If your up for the challenge though you can pretty much survive if your smart about whats comming (save scum at Olegs) by just doing the quest locations as they appear.

This will make the stag lord tough but you can do it if you understand how your party is built.

Ugh lol the whole reason I stopped playing Divinity is because turn based is too easy
These games, this, Pillars are meant to be played RtWp. Imo the only reason they released turn based modes is for $$$ because people complain its too hard
Hey its your game play it like you want, nothing against people doing what they want to do but not for me

[alanc9]

That's not quite fair. Some people just plain love turn-based in itself. Maybe because then it plays more like PnP?

But you're absolutely right that TB mode does hand a huge advantage to the player. TB still works as a game, but you'll need to crank the difficulty up. I stick with RTwP, myself.

[Duder]

Originally posted by alanc9:

That's not quite fair. Some people just plain love turn-based in itself. Maybe because then it plays more like PnP?

But you're absolutely right that TB mode does hand a huge advantage to the player. TB still works as a game, but you'll need to crank the difficulty up. I stick with RTwP, myself.

Maybe unfair, but my opinion of course, with Pillars anyway. Every day there was a new post about it being too hard with real time, sales were down, boom turn based mode, sales go up. I just don't understand, usually when you suck at something it's fun to get better, for me anyway. I get it may be difficult for some people with short attention spans etc, but it's learning something new like anything else.
Anyhoo not trying to poop on anyone's parade
I had the advantage of playing the BGs and IWDs when they came out, so I had training
All about setting your autopause right. However, for this game, even that's a bit iffy because the combat log doesn't give any feedback on the pause - huge flaw imo

[Ivas]

Originally posted by Duder:

Originally posted by alanc9:

That's not quite fair. Some people just plain love turn-based in itself. Maybe because then it plays more like PnP?

But you're absolutely right that TB mode does hand a huge advantage to the player. TB still works as a game, but you'll need to crank the difficulty up. I stick with RTwP, myself.

Maybe unfair, but my opinion of course, with Pillars anyway. Every day there was a new post about it being too hard with real time, sales were down, boom turn based mode, sales go up. I just don't understand, usually when you suck at something it's fun to get better, for me anyway. I get it may be difficult for some people with short attention spans etc, but it's learning something new like anything else.
Anyhoo not trying to poop on anyone's parade
I had the advantage of playing the BGs and IWDs when they came out, so I had training
All about setting your autopause right. However, for this game, even that's a bit iffy because the combat log doesn't give any feedback on the pause - huge flaw imo

TB for me removes chaos from the battle. And many rules just work better. Like initiative or 5 feet step. I played Baldur's gate, nwn, pillars of eternity, and I can play rtwp, but prefer turnbased

[Duder]

Originally posted by Ivas:

Originally posted by Duder:

Maybe unfair, but my opinion of course, with Pillars anyway. Every day there was a new post about it being too hard with real time, sales were down, boom turn based mode, sales go up. I just don't understand, usually when you suck at something it's fun to get better, for me anyway. I get it may be difficult for some people with short attention spans etc, but it's learning something new like anything else.
Anyhoo not trying to poop on anyone's parade
I had the advantage of playing the BGs and IWDs when they came out, so I had training
All about setting your autopause right. However, for this game, even that's a bit iffy because the combat log doesn't give any feedback on the pause - huge flaw imo

TB for me removes chaos from the battle. And many rules just work better. Like initiative or 5 feet step. I played Baldur's gate, nwn, pillars of eternity, and I can play rtwp, but prefer turnbased

That seems to be many people's issue with it, chaotic. Frustrating for them it seems, I get that.

[MarioFanaticXV]

Originally posted by Duder:

Originally posted by tazman1:

the swarms are also pretty easy if you go turn based so you can move your party around without issue and throw acid flasks or alchemist fires. The best way I found for running the stag lord part is make Olegs a base of operations carry 20 rations on you every run. There is actually a guide show casing that and several locations you can go for XP. If your up for the challenge though you can pretty much survive if your smart about whats comming (save scum at Olegs) by just doing the quest locations as they appear.

This will make the stag lord tough but you can do it if you understand how your party is built.

Ugh lol the whole reason I stopped playing Divinity is because turn based is too easy
These games, this, Pillars are meant to be played RtWp. Imo the only reason they released turn based modes is for $$$ because people complain its too hard
Hey its your game play it like you want, nothing against people doing what they want to do but not for me

Ah yes, everyone knows that turn-based games are inherently easier than action-based games; it's not like series such as Fire Emblem and XCOM are well-known for their difficulty.</sarcasm>

[Drake]

rtwp is good with D&D because of the light complexity of the ruleset. AD&D 1 and 2E and D&D 3E are easy to manage, there is not a lot going on in battle, actions are fairly straight forward. 5E has a little more with reactions but not that much.

Pathfinder however is a lot more complex. You can see it quickly with the magus (which is one of the many classes with that style of gameplay), the complex actions happening in a single turn is just to wacky to manage efficiently in real time. You're often failing to register spellstrike because your char moved an inch etc.
There are alos many actions that only work for one or 2 rounds, it's just to messy to work in real time (or you'll have to spam the spacebar to catch every moment to make good use of it).

Turn based is way cleaner to adapt tabletop games that have a lot of complexity in actions.

I just can't go back to realtime after playing turn based pathfinder, you just don't have the same level of control, when I don't have any issues playing infinity engine games in rtwp.

[forkofspite]

Originally posted by Drake:

rtwp is good with D&D because of the light complexity of the ruleset. AD&D 1 and 2E and D&D 3E are easy to manage, there is not a lot going on in battle, actions are fairly straight forward. 5E has a little more with reactions but not that much.

Old thread, but I have to disagree with 3E being light compared to Pathfinder. Pathfinder is based on 3E (technically, 3.5 but that just revised 3.0 abilities rather than game mechanics). Pathfinder 1E simplified 3.5 mechanics a bit (examples: combat maneuver bonus/defense rather than the asinine grapple rules of 3.5, combined perception rather than separate spot/listen). Eventually, the sheer amount of material released by Paizo made it cumbersome and sometimes contradictory, but the same thing happened with 3.5.

As for the original topic, the rule system is turn-based. Since that was my background, that was (and still is) my preference. This game however, was designed as RTWP - turn-based was only added later (first via mods and then implemented by Owlcat into a new version at some point).

As for RTWP/TB relative difficulty, TB is more intuitive and thus generally considered "easier". But, with practice, RTWP can be abused to cause some opponents to keep changing their action (thereby never actually completing any). That doesn't work against most opponents (those that just attack), but it can be effective against casters (can disrupt their spells), those that breath (but only when they catch multiple characters), or potentially others that have options other than just the simple close/attack routine. Those tactics aren't available in TB. Plus, initiative is mostly irrelevant in RTWP, so there's nothing to gain by abilities that improve initiative (opportunity cost in TB).