2061

Can’t wait until you get Force Bombs, then the unbeliever’s shall pay!

2062

Apparently I lost the chance to meet Jubilost. Grumble. May restart a Scaled Fist or a Grenadier here.

2063

No? I don’t think that’s possible. If you fail to save his cart, he’ll join you later but not right then.

E - nope, you’re fucked. I thought they fixed that.

2064

What do I need to look out for to avoid the same fate? I don’t think I’ve seen a cart to save yet.

2065

Failure to meet Jubilost:

Thorn Ford. You have to actually enter the area after the Troll Trouble quest starts. I think I got fucked by exploring there first, then not actually going into the zone after Troll Trouble started. Then I cleared the troll fort, and he’s gone forever lollllllllllllllllllllllll I’m annoyed.

2066

So I just encountered what appeared to be a Mite doing standup in the Old Sycamore Caves. Doing standup badly, but giving it a shot. I am amuse.

2 things I’ve noticed: this game really makes you work the entire tactical toolkit in combat including special abilities and combat maneuvers. Some of the D&D 3.5 type games I’ve played in the past were more about pure bonus munchkinism but this feels very tactically crunchy. Likewise, I like the way they’ve incorporated all manner of non-combat mechanics from athletic/mobility checks to bypass obstacles to all the camping fu.

A question: I chose the “do not choose sides” option in the Mite v Kobold war and am able to roam through both caves without fighting the Mites or Kobolds. These caves are clearly set up as a series of battles. I notice I have the option to end my non-aggression with either side and attack them. Is that just a pure role playing choice or is there some mechanical reason for slaughtering/not-slaughtering the weirdo Mites and silly Kobolds? (From a role playing perspective even though they are theoretically evil creatures they seem too silly and weird to slay wantonly.)

2067

Thanks! I just went to Thorn’s Ford for the first time, but haven’t seen anything troll-related, so I’ll watch for that.

2068

It’s up to you. You only have that option because you are some form of Neutral. It will have an impact later if you choose to.

You can invite Kobolds to live in your kingdom if you do a certain thing with Tartuccio during Troll Trouble

2069

You have the quest start in your Kingdom tracker and then go to the aforementioned Ford. It’s also a good time to drag Harrim around and big E as he tells you.

And this might go without saying, but it’s a very good idea to save your game Kingdom wise at the start of each Chapter. There are things which can go sideways on you, or that you might want to change (like this) and it’s a good point to kind of restart without having to go back too far. Also make sure you are keeping up with your Kingdom stuff, it drives a lot of your choices in the game.

2070

I’d say Octavia’s relative value increases greatly over the course of the game. Early on she is not very useful outside of using Haste, Grease, and Stinking Cloud. Those are all insanely powerful abilities but her DPS is not going to be her selling point until towards the later part of the game. Unfortunately, early on her multi-class into rogue is definitely a handicap as she’s kind of like a sorcerer progression-wise with fewer casts. Later on once you can get into Arcane Trickster the sneak attack damage starts going crazy and being a level behind in magic isn’t near as crippling.

2071

I went with the kobolds because they have wittier banter, and they are not butt ugly. Bonus, lizards!

I also have no idea if my actions will have consequences, but I’ll wait and see.

The fights in that cave were great fun up to that point, although I needed to pull out all the stops to survive each one. Big dude was just a bit too much once I’d exhausted all my spells and abilities.

I discovered map scrolling and learned the location of the Stag Lord’s place of residence, and am now sneaking over his walls.

By the way, can I just take a moment to say how much I appreciate that you can click on the main menu options while the menu is zooming into position instead of waiting for it to finish. It’s a little thing, but there was another game that did this which bugged the hell out of me because you had to finish the animation first.

Also the main theme music is one of the best things I’ve heard recently. It’s my “in head” music while I work around the place, making even small tasks take on an epic quality.

2072

Everyone, please put Kingdom Management on a Easy or Effortless. I can’t recommend it enough for your first playthrough. Don’t let the kingdom shit ruin your fun.

It’s separate from the game difficulty setting.

2073

By not killing either of them it will be nearly (if not totally) impossible to reach level 5 before the Stag Lord. Which will just make that fight a little harder.

2074

I would say put it on Easy, because then you actually get to make choices, but the checks are much more forgiving. I think on Effortless it just removes that part of the game entirely.

I won’t say I didn’t have frustrations but in the end I liked how the Kingdom building was a part of the game. But it doesn’t give you near enough information, though I haven’t seen if they fixed that in the Definitive Edition yet.

2075

Yeah, I generally enjoy the Kingdom stuff as well, but I think I’m in the minority.

2076

Bah the munchking in me came screaming out while I was finishing the Ole Sycamore Depths and I just said “Goddamn these dev-made NPCs are a bunch of crap!!” and I deleted my save game.

I didn’t hit a point of difficulty I couldn’t pass; the creeping feeling that my little folks were just non-optimal finally became overwhelming. I mean Jesus, who the F built these NPCs? Tristian cant wear plate, and that means he’s not IMO really a cleric, he’s a stupid robe wearing dude. Both Valerie and Amiri have nearly useless levels of strength. Part of the issue is that I chose a Sorceress as my main and she just didn’t do much at early levels. If the party had a good frontline, it would have been fine.

Bah, I can only handle so much non-optimization. Must start over…

I’m probably going to start over.

2077

I made Tristan a Mystic Theurge. The first few lvls he was essentially a heal bot that cast a spell here and there. By level 8 or 9 he was Magic Missile and Aoe spells gatling gun, on top of his healing spells.

2078

This is because as an Ecclistheurge Tristian has access to a variety of wizard spells. He’s basically part wizard. Thus, no armor.

Valerie makes a great monk (Scaled Fist).

I’ve come to really appreciate all the NPCs. Owlcat gave you a surprising amount of variety and flexibility.

Use Harrim instead of Tristian. Give Amiri a reach weapon.

2079

Or use the Enlarge Person spell.

2080

I put it on Effortless and I’m still routinely running into checks that are ~60% success with an advisor that has 4 or 5 in their main stat. That was towards the end of chapter 2. It doesn’t feel dramatically different from the vanilla Normal settings that I used in my first attempt at the game when it was first released.

Fwiw, I actually started the game with kingdom management on Normal and played that way for a while (the setting got changed when I was fiddling with difficulty options) and I can barely tell a difference. I’m starting to wonder now if my kingdom management got locked into Normal difficulty somehow.