1941

It’s because you (and I :)) look at 18-20 and think “two” but it’s not since the numbers are inclusive. 18, 19, 20 is the critical range, or 3 numbers out of 20. Doubling that makes it 6 numbers out of 20 are critical, or 15, 16, 17 + 18, 19, 20.

1942

Ahh, mystery solved. So that kind of sucks that Keen is actually a negative with Improved Critical, but now I know.

1943

Am I crazy, or is Magus combat bugged in turn-based mode?

Regongar swings two (sometimes three? I didn’t take notes) times with a move+attack when I pick any touch attack with both Spell Combat and Spellstrike active. This is…strong.

Except for the times when I do that and he takes a what looks like five-foot step and then can’t do anything, so his turn is a complete bust.

Bummer, because I really like having him on my team bad voice-acting and all.

1944

It does, but it was one of those things where if you allowed it you could get Crit Ranges of like 12-20 with a lot of weapons. Which leads to all sorts of insanity with Sneak Attacks or other things. I mean you can still get 15-20, which is already insane anyway.

1945

I believe this is accurate. That’s just how magus work. You’re probably also seeing the point where Regongar is getting an extra attack thanks to BAB. Also, don’t forget to use his claws for an additional attack!

Five-foot step means you can’t take any full-round actions, which invalidates a loot of cool abilities. There’s been plenty of times where I’ve done it and then kicked myself.

1946

Incorrect. You just can’t do full-round actions that have a movement component (e.g. charge). In tabletop you can take a five-foot step between attacks in a full attack, no less. In Pathfinder, you absolutely can five-foot step into a full attack.

Besides, the UI shows “Move + Spell” and all indicators are green like they generally are, and then he makes a small move and I can’t do anything any more. It’s pretty obviously a bug.

How though? Swing + deliver the spell, yes, that’s Spellstrike and it’s a standard action. But Spell Combat should be a full-round action, no? It’s like it’s letting me do both.

Negative on BAB, I’ve been playing pretty sporadically. We’re level 4 still.

1947

Maybe I hit a bug. Ekundayo at level 6 took a five-foot step to get out of melee range of wolf, but when he fired his bow he only let off one shot instead of the normal 3-4.

E - See the images below. In the first, Ekundayo hasn’t moved at all. You can see it says Full attack, and the x3 on the boar.

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In this image, he’s taken a five-foot step. It now shows this as his attack action and the boar just has the standard attack icon over it.

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The PFKM Wiki does say this -

I don’t understand.

1948

I started playing again after a 2 year break, and tried a slayer archer. It seems plenty strong but sort of boring, probably ideal for RtwP as little macro. What are fun classes for turn-based if I’d like to have more to do? Some sort of sorc or wizard? or? I don’t know the many pathfinder classes that well.

1949

Yeah, I think it’s an oversight in TB mode. Hopefully one that gets patched alongside the Magus silliness. It’s something else that Regongar can do a move + swing thrice + deliver a touch spell. Makes him a hell of an assassin. On the other hand, he is quite a bit squishier than my other melees plus the limitations around casting in melee keep him from being completely overpowered.

In other news, you absolutely can chain crits with Outflank, hahaha. PC crits a thing, which gives Valerie an AOO to whack it, she crits, and PC gets another swing. At that point, thing was real dead.

Linzi’s Courage song going from +1 to +2 at level 5 is legit, eh? She’s worth it just for that and the bonus heals and whatever the amazing level 2 disable spell vs Will save is, Cacophonous something-or-other.

Might dual Val after level 5 here. She’s got her tower-shield-no-longer-nerfs-attacks perk, and from there it’s like some reflex saves and whatever. Fighter feats, though, and Greater Weapon Spec and all the fun crit things. Dunno. Might not be much worth dualling her into anyway. Vivisectionist maybe?

Dual-wielding Slayer PC is absurd. Super one-dimensional, for sure, but madre de Dios does he just murder everything. Even if he doesn’t get to sneak attack, he still hits like a big ol’ 20-STR dual-wielding truck. Might end up switching him back to medium armor (mmm, breastplate +2) but the movement is so nice.

Octavia is at a low point. Arcane Trickster next level, though! And hey, elemental sneak attack damage ain’t the worst. She just got the second-level “get a bunch of extra sneak attack damage” spell, which I haven’t tried out yet. Might be amusing.

Harrim has gotten way more effective with a little gear and some feats. Getting Shield Homies with Val was legit, and I think he’s going to get Outflank next – it’s really, really good, and putting it on all my melees seems like it’s probably going to be the jam. And, y’know, heals.

Boy, they didn’t half build out this whole Kingmaker part of the game, did they? I just started messing with it, and there’s an awful lot to do. Depth TBD, I suppose, but I’m impressed so far.

Now to go murder those stupid wererats…

1950

Oh, on the Magus thing:

Spell Combat

At 1st level, a magus learns to cast spells and wield his weapons at the same time. This functions much like two-weapon fighting , but the off-hand weapon is a spell that is being cast. To use this ability, the magus must have one hand free , while wielding a light or one-handed melee weapon in the other hand. As a full-round action, he can make all of his attacks with his melee weapon at a –2 penalty and can also cast any spell from the magus spell list with a casting time of 1 standard action (any attack roll made as part of this spell also takes this penalty).

Spell Strike

At 2nd level, whenever a magus casts a spell with a range of “touch” from the magus spell list, he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack.

Instead of the free melee touch attack normally allowed to deliver the spell, a magus can make one free melee attack with his weapon (at his highest base attack bonus) as part of casting this spell. If successful, this melee attack deals its normal damage as well as the effects of the spell. If the magus makes this attack in concert with spell combat , this melee attack takes all the penalties accrued by spell combat melee attacks.

This attack uses the weapon’s critical range (20, 19–20, or 18–20 and modified by the keen weapon property or similar effects), but the spell effect only deals ×2 damage on a successful critical hit, while the weapon damage uses its own critical modifier .

To sum up:

The move+attack thing should be one attack with the weapon, and if it hits it delivers the touch attack. Right now, it’s like it is allowing Spell Combat after a move, which is wrong – Spell Combat is explicitly a full-round action. And I swear I’ve seen Regongar swing three times, but that might be me conflating the damage from Shocking Grasp (on less important fights I just have him use the Touch of Fatigue cantrip, cuz why not).

1951

Man, I really, really want to like this game, but the uneven difficulty really throws me off at times. You’re trucking along, making progress, exploring, banging out quests, and then out of the blue you hit a fight that wipes you out over and over and I end up running away after 30-40 minutes of reloading quick saves.

1952

It’s definitely the kind of game that has unbeatable fights when you encounter them. Just bounce and come back later.

1953

I accept this happily in games that don’t scale up enemies with the character. Just means you moved a little too quickly or need to rethink your approach. There were many fights in this game which rewarded seriously heavy spell preparation (like basically throwing up all my protection spells, summoning distracting adds and positioning my guys).

I really don’t like games that make the kobolds you fought as level 1 feel as difficult or annoying fighting them at level 20.

1954

Pretty sure there is a bug with 5 step in TB mode right now. For my ranger I am always using it, and if I use the max distance as indicated by holding the shift key to limit myself to 5 feet I usually only get one shot off. If I do not use the max distance, but instead use 95% or so then I get the expected 3+ hits for a full round.

So tldr; don’t use the max distance as indicated by the UI for the 5 foot step. Use slightly less than that.

1955

I think if you left-click the 5-foot-step icon and then move, you should be safe? Mostly? I’ve definitely had the UI mislead me from time to time with moving 19 feet with Linzi and then not getting to take a standard action, for example, though. Best to be cautious.

I really want the Magus bug(s?) to be fixed. 80% of the time he’s overpowered with extra attacks after movement, 20% of the time he loses his turn to the bug. I really like using the class though; Regongar has a very stupid name but access to all those elements is really helpful on top of his general murderiness.

In other news, you know what this reminds me of? Whatever the hell that out-of-nowhere well-done Das Schwarzen Auge RPG was, from like 2006 or so. Something about the movement, the art, the collision, the randomly wack translation is resonating with that memory. Woof, but I just now had some non-voice-acted dialogue from some rangers in the wilderness that was definitely Google translated.

1956

I was messing around with character creation last night after picking up the DLC, and good lord. Whoever wrote the Kineticist class has a deep and abiding hatred of players and DMs to make the Lord of Murder blush.

Monk looks quite silly. Do I want double strength bonus on like a 20 STR Tiefling? I do, friends, I really do.

1957

Hit level 6, fighters getting two attacks/round now, all is good. Wander about a little west of Oleg’s trading post, the game throws 3 treants at me. Reload. Wander around a little, here’s two elder water elementals. Reload. Find some swamp ruins, here’s a lich-like undead monster. Reload. All three encounters were level 12+.

Not to be the voice of negativity here, and I still really want to like this game, but man it’s making it hard.

1958

To avoid analysis paralysis I decided to buy and play the standalone beneath the depths dungeon, much easier to pick characters I don’t feel I’m locked in to for weeks

1959

I’ve long ago given up on caring about how developers wanted me to play their game ‘normally’ and started adjusting difficulty to make me want to play. I’ve played games on the easiest difficulty just to have a story-based playthrough if I get too annoyed with the combat encounters. Letting go of the push to play a punishing game, whether that’s because of pressure from other players, achievements, or whatnot, makes a huge difference in enjoying my leisure time.

My feeling is that when you are on the cusp of leaving a game because of it, it’s time to reduce that difficulty.

1960

If it’s bothering you that much the Bag of a Tricks mod will let you turn off random encounters. It will allow you to change a great many things about the rules. For example, I allow unlimited lock picking attempts because I’m not dealing with that shit. You can also adjust the overland fatigue issue someone complained about.

Any spell that can take an enemy out of combat temporarily is OP. Level 1 spell Grease (reflex save) is great for this. Level 2 spell Stinking Cloud (fort save) is seriously OP. You’ll be using this until level 10 or so to trivialize many encounters. Just make sure you have Delay Poison, Communal on the party.

Of course there’s Hold Person / Monster and the bard laughter spell which go against will save. I’m sure there’s a level 4 or 5 AE will spell as well but I can’t think of it atm.