I’ve played all the BGs, Icewind Dale, Pillars of Eternity, D:OS, etc., so I’m familiar with the genre. Just on a click by click basis this one is providing a lot of resistance to me. The number of times the game seems to be ignoring what I want to do in combat is really frustrating and pushing against the ‘dive in’ approach. I guess I’ll bang my head against the wall some more until it breaks (my head or the wall, whichever comes first), but I was hoping maybe there were better tutorial resources out there somewhere.
Very little. The AI will attack the nearest enemy with whatever is equipped. They will not use any abilities without you telling them to. When the enemy they are facing is dead, they’ll pick a new one. You can right click on a spell / power and the character will chain-cast it. You usually want to use this on, for example, Octavia’s Acid Splash or an equipped wand. On harder encounters, maybe have your cleric chain-cast Channel Positive Energy (note: Harrim’s Channel Positive Energy will heal enemies, Tristian’s won’t – Harrim is too ugly to get the feat).
I mean, for most battles, draw a box around your characters, and right-click on the closest enemy so they all focus fire on it. Repeat when it dies.
That doesn’t work for e.g. these swamp guys who fear my dudes and then murder my little crossbow wielding hobbit narrator. As far as I could tell, having AI turned on seemed to cause certain instructions not to “take,” but I can’t be 100% sure, partly because it’s additionally hard to tell whether the instructions were able to be executed in the first place – that very ambiguity and lack of feedback is part of what I have found so frustrating.
Apparently my experience with this game is atypical, so I’ll back out of the thread. It’s proving far harder for me to dive into than you’d think, given all the Infinity games I played.
Yeah, those guys are hard at level 2/3. Do them later. Did you do the Old Sycamore, yet? Lots of encounters of there are appropriate. And few that are hard.
No, I’ve been hesitant to wander around too much on the overworld for fear of running the clock down.
Don’t worry about the clock, it’s pretty much impossible to run out of time.
Ah, that’s good to know. I’ve been traumatized by timed CRPGs ever since Fallout.
Yeah, same, but thankfully this is really more of a “flavor” thing than an actual mechanic. Even if you explored the entire map (available to you at this point) and took liberal camping moments to fully heal and etc., you’ll still have like 30 of the 90 days left with nothing left to do except the big push to wrap up the chapter and then the clock goes away.
Setting these options to Always might also help you to keep an eye on what’s going on in combat.
Man, I love this game. The writing is amazingly good. Irovetti is a fantastic villain. This is the first time I brought Jubilost to the Rushlight Tournament.
Tohree
1732
Just an added note on time management. While you should have plenty of time to work through the timed quests, it is easy to get jammed up if you are not careful. During chapter 3, I was waiting around like an idiot for a story prompt to move forward, not realizing that a map location had popped up days earlier. Thankfully, I received a warning in kingdom mode that I was running out of time.
In chapter 4, I was given an option to use kingdom mode for a time sensitive search quest, not realizing that the clock was ticking all the while. I finished this one just in time. I didn’t even have time to rest in the dungeon.
There is a quest for your ranger companion that should be done sooner rather than later as well.
Save often.
Yeah, it really is a treasure, and it’s always a big bummer to me my first full experience with it (post release) was teaming with bugs and issues that ultimately prevented me from beating it. However, I’m at the end of chapter 5 now and having a blast with it and playing it on-and-off for the last few months making steady progress, and hope to see the ending this time!
Gendal
1734
Odd, I felt all your complaints applied more to the infinity engine games than Pathfinder - it’s the best RtwP iteration yet I feel. I mean to some degree or another I feel like that with all of these titles but less so with Pathfinder. Definitely turn on the action icons as pointed out earlier and see if that helps.
Absolutely loving the game so far, like @Scotch_Lufkin I had issues with the release that stopped me from progressing to Chapter 4 but it’s been smooth sailing so far.
This is the kind of thing I’m talking about.
Click on it and then right click the target, and it escapes out. Click on it and then left click the target, and nothing with the target icon changes, so you don’t know whether it ‘took’ or not. Right click per the instructions so that it goes into automatic mode, and then it just sits there in the little automatic-mode sidebar, such that it appears to be a persistent toggle rather than an individual attack. So, what is actually happening? If it’s in automatic mode, does every single swing become a ‘coup de grace’ attack? Is there any reason, other than the attack-of-opportunity risk, not to just have it toggled on all the time? Is my brain addled with thoughts of mana and cooldowns that should be entirely dispensed with?
That issue is emblematic of a certain ‘fuzziness’ I have encountered generally. Maybe I’ve just been away from D&D style games for too long.
Are you trying to Coup de Grace an invalid (i.e. Non-Helpless) target? I’m going to have to admit, I’m not really following you here. I just played today for a few hours and everything is working, my actions are being taken, I target and click on enemies and characters and it all works like one would expect. I can make a video maybe to walk you through me playing a little, if you that would help?
EDIT: Oh, I think I see what you are asking - you can leave it on, but doing a Coup de Grace only works against helpless targets, and while it’s on you risk being auto-attacked back by attacks of opporunity. I leave it off, a helpless target dies fast enough. I took most of those built-in actions off my toolbars, honestly.
EDIT2:
By the way, yes, there are no cooldowns in 3.5/Pathfinder rules. There are abilities that can be used as often as you like, such as Charge, and abilities that can be used X times per rest (like most spells and abilities), and there are passives that can be toggled on (like Power Attack, where you take a penalty to hit for bonus damage).
Oh, yes, I guess I was missing the ‘helpless’ caveat there.
Yeah that ability doesn’t need to be on your bar. Use charge liberally and defensive fighting on your tank.
Got this on the GoG sale and spend like 12 hours trying to find a Class, played a bit with a Paladin and didn’t like it. I am just not a lawful good player. I now there are a ton of companions around for most classes except Monk Paladin and Druid right? Neither of what I like to play as all have alignment restrictions. Can I respec an NPC to a Paladin?
I usually play a TWF rogue or 2 Handed fighter as a charmer type with tons of persuasion and Charisma and a lot of skills. I don’t plan on playing on anything higher then Normal and would like not to totally replace an NPC either. I looked at the Eldritch Scion which seems great but I hear the Companion for that is fantastic as well. You get a Bard as companion right from the start as that would usually be another go to. Anyone got a cool suggestion? I don’t want crazy multiclassing builds like there are a lot around. Preferably a pure class or max two classes would be good. Don’t like Spellcasters either. I don’t know Pathfinder at all as I left DnD based ganes after I burned out on 3.5. Any suggestions welcome.
The Eldritch Scion is Chaotic Evil, which is enough reason for me to ignore the guy.
As for classes, as you said, most of the base classes are covered. It’s too bad about the alignment restrictions, because you would probably have a lot of fun with the scales fist. It’s a charisma focused Monk class. With a single level of sorcerer/bard, you can jump into the Dragon Disciple.
