[PK#16] Pathfinder Kingmaker (Last Azlanti Unfair*) - Finishing the Ruined Watchtower with Ekundayo

A new friend was picked up in the previous episode! A ranger named Ekundayo and his friend mr. Dog. He shall join our party for a time as he seeks vengeance on the trolls and this is a troll heavy segment of the game :D An overall very solid damage dealing character that is nice and easy to use. We uncover all secrets from the Ruined Watchtower area here and prepare to continue exploring the area for more clues about these strange Trolls!
Previous episode: • [PK#15] Pathfinder Kin...
Next episode: TBD
Full playthrough playlist: • Pathfinder Kingmaker (...
Thank you everyone for watching!
And a special thank you to our channel members:
Attila Giesz

[@peterkjrsrensen1952]

Harrim solves the puzzle when i took him to do his quest.

[@CoredumpedGaming]

Oh he does? It's been a while since I've taken him with me in the party, I did not remember that. I do like those interactions with the companions a lot :D

[@deelingerTV]

With this chest in the ruins I savespammed a lot, but never ever passed the Perception check, so Trickery it is.

[@neilandrewartha8122]

Doing a great job with the series. Inspired me to finally go back and play through the game after quitting a few times. I'm interested to see how Valerie's levelling will progress when you dive into dragon disciple. Also, I never knew about the experience sharing option, thanks for pointing that out. I always felt under levelled and that explains it.

[@CoredumpedGaming]

Glad to hear! Hope you enjoy it :D
The experience thing is always a little weird, personally I don't really like the way they implemented it, but yes, it does make a big difference in the way you gain experience.

[@notalefty999]

Pretty sure you can slot protection from alignment in the non domain slot and slot barkskin in your domain slot.

[@CoredumpedGaming]

Yes, that is correct. Maybe I misspoke on the video, what I was probably trying to say is that I cannot have barkskin in a non-domain slot.

[@erdiakarsu4945]

Borba probably knows this but there is Level 0 spell that gives +1 to skill checks (and to most other rolls for one time use), clerics also have that. Just like blessing of the faithful but different kind of bonus.

[@CoredumpedGaming]

Borba knows, but borba also forgets :o Don't actually remember what type of bonus it is, but I probably should have been using it :p

[@rts5462]

@@CoredumpedGaming I too was wondering why you never use the Guidance spell for skill checks. :D

[@walterverlaan1286]

That was a nice one.

[@Asankeket]

In terms of character builds, I was wondering why you gave Valerie Crane Style. It seems expensive for a measly +1 to AC. Does it have further benefits down the line? Also, at some point later in the game I'd like to see a video explaining your various character builds. I'm having trouble getting the general idea of those builds when they're presented piece by piece at every level-up.
And....funny how tanky leopards rule. I had one in one of my games, but never got that many bonuses to stack. There are so many feats and spells in the Pathfinder games that I still lack the encyclopaedic knowledge of spells and effects I had about the old BG games.

[@CoredumpedGaming]

Crane Style also cuts the attack bonus penalty for fighting defensively (which she does 100% of the time) in half, from -4 to -2. We want her to be as tanky as possible, but also would like her to hit enemies. So this is a defensive and offensive boost at the same time.
If you wanted to (personally I don't like to do this), you could also take Crane Wing/Crane Riposte after Crane Style (which is a requirement for these feats) for an additional 4 dodge bonus to AC. I won't do this because Crane Wing is bugged in the game so the requirement to "have at least one free hand" isn't actually checked, which means you can benefit from this even while using a shield, and I don't like to exploit bugs. I will likely take it on Regongar though when I swap him to a one handed weapon later on.
As for the video going over the various character builds I am planning on doing it. I haven't done it yet because sometimes I change my mind as I go and didn't want to have it inconsistent with the playthrough.
Edit - forgot to mention the pets :D Pets are very very powerful in pathfinder, even more so in WotR which we will also see once that playthrough comes to the channel. With all the buffs you can give them from your various support characters, they can be extremely useful. Especially if they can trip on their attacks.

[@TheRaya09]

i can see that this game have the same issue as wotr where naked dude is way better at tanking than a fully fledged heavy armor tanks, at least they fix it by buffing heavy armor in wotr with a mythical perk which they can't do here.

[@CoredumpedGaming]

Yes, the so called "pajama tanks" are king in terms of tanking after they get some gear, in the same way that it works in wotr.
Tanking with armour is still good, especially if coupled with arcane magic for mirror image and similar defensive effects, just it will never be as good as a monk dipped tank.
In wotr I was curious about those new mythic feats. I did see them and wanted to play around with them but I got busy with this project + rogue trader. Are the mythic feats good?

[@TheRaya09]

@@CoredumpedGaming some are very good like the poison immunity bypass and armor specialization (both for offence& defence), others are a welcome addition like the alchmeist bomber and mounted feat that bypass attacks of opportunity and the rest are "ok i guess" as you like to put it.

[@CoredumpedGaming]

I did play around a bit with Corruptor (the one to bypass poison immunity) and I love it. But it interacts weirdly. It bypasses certain enemies immunities, but it doesn't bypass for example undead enemies - we could argue that they are undead and as such don't breathe, but the feat specifically says that it ignores immunity. It also doesn't go through Delay Poison, which, is great of course, but also doesn't make much sense. I imagine that feat will get reworked to make more sense.

[@Tomas-ek9im]

You can trade with Dalton in your capital

[@deelingerTV]

What I definitely not like in this game, except its weird difficulty curve (you kinda need to know the exact order of completing quests to be on the safe side of things, else it’s a rollercoaster) is how heavily it relies on magic. It seems literally impossible to play it without 2/3 of your posse to be magic users, all that constant buffing, etc.
I usually prefer to see clerics as a figher with a healing ability, a mage - well, a mage is a mage, ofc, but his job is mainly to throw Magic Missiles and Fireballs all around, a couple of ranged characters to support with bows (like, a ranger and a thief) and a couple of frontliners - that would be my party of choice, D&D or whatever, but definitely not in this game, sadly… Pathfinder Kingmaker soaks in magic instead. I guess, mages - or sophisticated professionals, or scientists maybe in case of alchemists - should be quite rare in any world or universe, but here every gang of forest bandits have a couple, at least! :) Can’t take it seriously, thus not much involved in the storyline.

[@CoredumpedGaming]

It definitely is a very different experience than for example Baldur's Gate. But let's not forget that this is also true because of the difficulty I am imposing on this run. You can definitely go about the game in the more normal difficulties, and especially so if not playing last azlanti without relying so much on magic.
The pathfinder games are more about stacking numbers than super careful use of strategy. Not to say that strategy doesn't come into play, it does, but you can be a strategic mastermind and if you don't get those numbers stacked you'll have a hard time on the higher difficulties.
But as an example, you can have Valerie as your main tank without relying on pets and without multiclassing her into arcane magic and she'll tank fine. The problem is that on higher difficulties, especially once we get into unfair where we'll be taking double damage, a single crit from powerful enemies e.g. cyclops will drop Valerie in one shot. And all the AC in the world won't help there, and in last azlanti that can mean game over, that's where defensive magic really shines.
In a "normal" playthrough this isn't the case and even if you die here and there a quick reload will solve it.

[@deelingerTV]

@@CoredumpedGaming Yes, I do understand that, but still it seems the game is just designed this way. I am at the Trolls stage and I enjoy turn-based mode a lot so far, still every time the game tells me: "You can struggle the way you want (if you have a wee bit of masochism in you) and savespam as much as you need, but the magic way - it's how it was intended, how it was meant to be." :/
But then again, the problem is in me: talking flowers and telepathic rats are the things that almost killed all the immersion for me in Fallout 2 back in the days (after the glorious F1), if you know what I mean... :)

[@CoredumpedGaming]

Oh it has been way too long since I last played Fallout 1 and 2 for me to remember the perks :p Loved those games very very much though! What did Talking flowers and Telepathic rats do ?

[@deelingerTV]

@@CoredumpedGamingIt’s not the perks but the creatures to interact with. In the post-apocalyptic setting of the earlier Fallout games it totally ruined the game atmosphere for me. Same as ‘too much magic everywhere’ in Pathfinder Kingmaker game design makes it less appealing to me. :) Though I like to watch this playthrough, mostly because of your comments.

[@CoredumpedGaming]

Ah, ok. There are certainly some weird things in the fallout games that's for sure, but I don't remember those things bothering me at the time. Might just be nostalgia though and time having gone by making me forget the lesser things of those games. Mostly I remember really enjoying the targeting system (V.A.T.S. if I remember correctly) and aiming for the eyes like Boo :p being able to kill merchants and take all their gear and that mafia quest in Fallout 2 where you could hand the gun to the kids playing outside and they would kill their father for you. I need to replay those games sometime.