Smoulderburn TPK at level 2? Meh. Done with this game.

[Ubiquitous FUD]

Don't have time for stupid game design / ridiculously impossible encounters at level 2.

They've got my cash so I'm sure they could care less, but still the fight is just stupidly frustrating all the way around. Kinda bummed, would have liked to enjoy the game. Burn me once, fine, but not again.

[GeorgeJJR]

Difficulty setting is your friend -- and Pathfinder Kingmaker does it better than most, letting you change some individual elements of difficulty (critical hits, general enemy difficulty etc).

Personally I always play no-reload, and so am playing at mostly normal setting, but with lower criticals (too much RNG in that for my skill level no-reload) ... and I will adjust the difficulty to easier if a surprise battle looks insanely hard (as opposed to a battle which I just misplayed -- they mean restart :( for me. If I tried to play at harder levels I'd be very frustrated, but its a game, its supposed to be fun (real life has plenty of challenges but is no-reload with no difficulty slider), and adjusting difficulty is one of the tools the games provides (ie its not using some cheat code), so why not use it?

[99Random]

I am not going to rehash the points that have been discussed in so many threads about this fight, but here are the top line.

Put very simply, there is a fight you gain access to when you a little to weak to handle, but shortly you will level up and be able to handle. This is causing rage quit?

- This is so obviously an a ambush with dead bodies around a campfire. Most GM's would love to punish players that foolishly chose to sleep there

- This fight is almost (people have done it) impossible at level 2, but at level 3 it is totally doable since the damage is all electrical and you get spells that protect you.

- Old Sycamore is a level 2-3 area and you chose (inadvertently) to trigger the fight while level 2.

It is intended as a very challenging fight for low level parties and is not required so you can come back later at higher level and spank him.

[Ubiquitous FUD]

It's about design and consideration of time. Perhaps I am just getting too old for gaming, but I work 50+ hours a week and I play games for downtime relaxation and fun. To introduce an encounter that is impossible and lethal at such an early point in the game, (I did not feel like I was rushing the plot point or pushing the experience curve aggressively by being at that location), that is essentially meaningless to the campaign outcome, feels almost sadistic. Party kills are just discouraging, especially in random fights, and especially on normal difficulty.

As to most GM's punishing players for foolish decisions - If I was playing Pathfinder PnP and a GM TPK'd a 2nd level noob party in an ambush at the outset of the campaign, I'd never sit down at their table again either. A 'challenge' would suggest that the fight can be won with some creative thinking by the player, and since it is so early in game play it should be something a beginner player can win about half the time, on normal difficulty. And it certainly should not degrade into a TPK.

Not really a rage quit by the way, its a 'reason' quit, if this is how the dev's designed the game, then its pretty reasonable to quit if you don't like getting blindsided by unwinnable fights when your just figuring out how to play the game.

[asame_akio]

You say blindsided, but there’s nowhere else to that point in the game, outside of the obvious safe area that is Oleg’s trading post, where you randomly come across a free place to sleep, which should already smell suspicious. On top of that, this one is littered with corpses and there’s a little war going on not a hundred paces away. Does this seem like a good place to sleep to you?

You’re going to be at most level two or three if you end up getting a partywipe there, so even if you weren’t paying any attention, and even if you weren’t saving frequently the way you ought to be in any CRPG, you’re still not even losing out on that much progress.

Taking all that into account, if a death there still feels unwarranted and worth quitting over to you, then yeah, this game probably isn’t going to be up your alley. Maybe avoid the whole genre, in fact.

[Shin Dan]

lmao smouldy filtered him!!

[Baldurs_Gate_2]

Wait, is there not a DC 50 hidden chest with finger of death nearby? Or the nice little, invisible rats at ratnook hill xd

They really trolled us with those obstacles.

[Immortal Reaver]

Originally posted by Baldurs_Gate_2:

Wait, is there not a DC 50 hidden chest with finger of death nearby? Or the nice little, invisible rats at ratnook hill xd

They really trolled us with those obstacles.

Wererats are behind cca 32 DC trap. So if you have trouble disarming it, monster behind is probably too strong. Also if you disable the trap they are not Invisible, or if you wait their invisibility runs out.
DC 35 (not 50) chest is there as quest reward for feeding worg, and you have (Singed) Raise Death scroll in case, unless you use it with MC.

[Gresh]

Kingmaker is pretty punishing sometimes. It's not for everyone, and this specific encounter is a common complaint.

When you're playing a CRPG, your mantra should be "save before every encounter." In this specific scenario, that should probably be amended to "save before the very obvious trap if you're going to go ahead and trigger it."

[mike_hanna211]

Yeah this fight is punishing for any group below level 4. And, it's not even worth the effort. It's a level 13 will-o'-wisp that has a ton of feats.

You have to go into this fight with foreknowledge of what's to come. Otherwise, you won't have Resist Energy (to reduce his damage) prepared, or Magic Missile (the only spell he's vulnerable to).

It is a ridiculous encounter that would never be in a PnP game, unless the GM/DM was being a total ♥♥♥♥.

[99Random]

Originally posted by Dulce:

Kingmaker is pretty punishing sometimes. It's not for everyone, and this specific encounter is a common complaint.

When you're playing a CRPG, your mantra should be "save before every encounter." In this specific scenario, that should probably be amended to "save before the very obvious trap if you're going to go ahead and trigger it."

Exactly this. Party wipe encounters are very frequently put into cRPG's because many players like an extra challenging fight and players have the ability to load an old save.

In PnP a GM can dynamically alter the difficulty of fights depending on the level and abilities of a group. Even games such as Skyrim that attempt to do this usually fail by making every fight a little too easy and bland (many players love this aspect).

[azaris]

The optional (and obvious) trap fight is a staple of cRPGs. Dragon Age: Origins has a very similar optional fight in it (sleep in the wilderness at a suspiciously comfy prepared camp site if you want to be attacked by a high-level undead monster), yet no one rants about how it ruins the game.

[Frostfeather]

Fair or not, if this game could otherwise be a good fit for you, it's a shame to end it over such a small thing.

[Godwoken Dovahkiin]

I really don't understand people like the OP.

Literally corpses around that camp, they must have died by something. Do you make stupid decisions IRL too? You go camping in the woods and see bear poop and decide "You know what? I'm sleeping there". Also you can always reload, but if that's somehow breaking immersion then:

You're playing a roleplaying game, and as I've said in the Divinity Original Sin 2 boards where people complain about such encounters. "Every adventurer at some point will meet it's end" not everyone is a hero, natural selection happens and it's your fault for thinking casually instead of thinking about the world you're in and it's dangers.

It's poetic, you became the same corpses you saw in that camp.

Welcome to CRPG's, or should I say, good bye.

[Frostfeather]

Originally posted by Godwoken Dovahkiin:

Literally corpses around that camp, they must have died by something.

As I recall, the game tells you they're burned (I was thinking fire, not electricity) and looked fearful (I was thinking drake, not... will-o-wisp or whatever he's supposed to be). My first run, my thought was that I'd already killed a manticore at level 2, so a drake would also be killable. And it seemed to be the correct type of terrain to find a drake or something similar in.

So I do understand where op is coming from, both in terms of the game giving uselessly vague clues and in terms of the fight being virtually unwinnable at level 2 without metaknowledge. The argument "you shouldn't rest by corpses" doesn't hold up because the main character and their companions spend the entire adventure doing extremely risky things, one after another after another for literal *years*. If they weren't prepared to take risks, they never would have attempted to found a barony in the first place.

But this is a situation where you have to "be your own DM" and reload and live with it.

[JODEGAFUN]

Originally posted by Ubiquitous FUD:

Don't have time for stupid game design / ridiculously impossible encounters at level 2.

They've got my cash so I'm sure they could care less, but still the fight is just stupidly frustrating all the way around. Kinda bummed, would have liked to enjoy the game. Burn me once, fine, but not again.

You can hit lv 4 at least before doing this, and there are more than enough hints that it is not a save place to rest. BTW it is not the only place where you can run into an enemie to strong, just be carefull if you reach a cave with a lots of corpses in front.