1861

There’s a difficulty option that makes it so that rest heals every alignment. Not sure if it really works on everythin. I recommend switching it on for the sake of your sanity; it’s not like you even lose any achievements or something if you set custom difficulty.

1862

If you have Tristian in your party and slot him in the camping spot thing he can heal ability damage twice as fast when you camp.

But yeah, the Old Sycamore Caves is a great dungeon but it does serve up a tri-fecta of bullshit. The centipedes drain DEX, the spiders drain STR and even the fucking frogs drain CON.

I still love it, though.

1863

I’ve had certain games do this for years, across various PCs, never figured out the cause and whether it was my PC, my hard drive, the game, the engine the game uses, the angle of the sun, or whatever. P:K is just particularly bad with it for me, but it seems likely the fault lies with my machine then. Anyway, I’m going to do a hard drive format and Windows reinstall soon, hopefully that improves things. Looking forward to finally getting to play this.

1864

Restart is going well. Appreciate the tip on Slayers being awesome, that’s certainly the case so far (at level 2, lol). Pretty much what I was looking for.

Question: How careful do I need to be about this time limit early on, and about the order I take these things on in? I kinda feel like I’m picking tasks blindly. Eh, we’ll see how murdered we get in the Elk Temple or whatever this thing is.

1865

In general, prioritize the main quest in Chapter 2 that will ensure you don’t hit the time limit which is 90 days. I had plenty of time.

1866

Unless you’re playing at a high difficulty and have to rest after every fight, you should have no problem completing everything you can in Chapter 1 before hitting the 90 day time limit.

1867

Also, you don’t miss out on anything if you complete that phase of the main quest. All the side quests and other content can still be done.

1868

Thanks!

1869

The only thing you get from doing the first chapter super fast is I believe a dueling sword +2. You’re better off fully exploring it and leaving more time for Chapter 2.

1870

Uh, no, if you do everything you can in chapter 1, you’ll face the Stag Lord at level 5 instead of level 4.

(Unless you choose the neutral option between the kobolds and mites, in which case it will be nearly impossible to reach level 5.)

1871

Getting into this now, I much prefer the turn-based combat.

I’m still early but now faced with my usual crippling roadblock: the level up screen! Holy smokes, so many possible ways to go. Any tips? I mean, much as I like to experiment, I hear this game is balls hard and I don’t want to head off down some arcane multiclass avenue that requires deep knowledge of the core systems when I’m completely in the dark. My main is a Fighter, because that’s my default “first playthrough” character, but of course now I have three fighters! (and the Bard).

I like the sound of a Fighter / Barbarian War Dog for my main, although it doesn’t seem like a natural fit for my Neutral Good disposition. For some reason I regret choosing that alignment, I feel like being a bit more random in my approach. No idea what I’m going to do with the other characters, perhaps turn the Bard into a spellcaster or some sort. Hopefully I can diversify my party a bit fairly soon.

1872

Build planning is a bit of a game within the game, particularly when you consider the whole party, items and so on. When multiclassing, the main thing you want to do is to stack bonuses or make sure they synergise. For instance, a druid gets all sorts of bonuses from Wis. If you also take a level or 2 of Monk, your high Wis will also grant AC. At higher levels you will therefore get AC bonuses from feats+ wild shape + druid buffs + Wis + Dex + items so there is potential to be a tougher tank than heavy armour wearing fighters.

Similarly, when planning and offensive char, you want to multiclass in way that stacks BaB bonuses/sneak sttack bonuses/spell bonuses.

1873

Don’t overthink it - if you are playing on normal difficulty, you will be fine, more or less no matter what classes you choose.

1874

You can do that, usually. Some conversation options are gated by your alignment, but most aren’t. As a fighter, there’s no penalty for changing your alignment.

Just level up everyone in their current class if you’re worried. The exception is Octavia, who you really want to make an Arcane Trickster. You can select it on level up screen and see its requirements, so be sure to work toward them.

The teamwork feats, Precise Strike and Outflank are great for your meleers (but no one else). Normally I would advise shying away from Weapon Focus because there are such a wide variety of weapons you’ll always find something better (but different) than what you have. But since you’re a fighter you want some of that sweet Weapon Specialization, which requires Weapon Focus. For the NPCs, I usually have them keep the weapon they come with so Weapon Focus for them is usually fine. The exceptions would be Amiri and Harrim who are always changing their weapons to whatever is best.

For Valerie you’re going to want feats to maximize her AC. So that’s Armor Focus, Shield Focus, Dodge, Greater Shield Focus. Probably a few others.

Improved Initiative is fine if you’re running out of ideas. Generally the recommended feats are fine, but sometimes it will recommend a ranged feat like Point-Blank Shot for a dedicated meleer.

More channels for Harrim and Tristian. More bombs for Jubilost.

Consider making Linzi a skill monkey. That’s feats like Alertness, Persuasive, Deceitful, Skill Focus: Perception, Skill Focus: Trickery, etc. She’ll never do any damage anyway.

Take Extend Spell for your buffers. The other meta-magic feats aren’t really necessary as there are items that grant a few usages of the feats that add damage.

Make sure everyone takes Blind-Fight at (or by) level 15. Because reasons. You can work around this, but it’s annoying.

There’s an NPC in Oleg’s (and later your tavern) that will let you respec if you mess something up.

1875

Thanks for the pointers and details. I do tend fall into overthink paralysis with these things. I hadn’t realised that you don’t have to make an immediate multiclass decision at this early point, which helps. It’s still super early so I’ll hopefully get a better idea by the time the next level or two roll around.

1876

The good news is that any fights you lose in Pathfinder are far easier the second time once you see the type of attacks that killed you and which of your abilities did something and which were useless. You can generally swap gear and spells out to make them far easier.

1877

Hold on! So this latest patch added a turn-based mode to the game? Hot dog! I had the addon but if it’s part of the game that makes it so much better. Time to restart once I finish my current games.

In case there still curiosity about classes from The discussion above I played briefly with a kineticist and they seemed pretty OP. I might go with it again because I think I would enjoy decimating the opposition.

1878

The game isn’t that hard on normal as long as you don’t try and stick out fights not meant for you. You will run into situations that you will have to come back for.

Also realize sneak attacks are very powerful in this game - just flanking an enemy is enough to trigger them.

1879

Not just that, but if you have two dudes in melee with an enemy and shoot it with a third, that ranged attack gets to be a sneak attack! It’s pretty absurd.

Octavia is getting some work done for me 😍

1880

Is there a reason why there is no camera rotation or higher zoom out? I guess mods can help there but seems strange.