Oh it is? Okay thanks.
I'm starting to find more bugs and other crap.

Now that Season of Bloom is over, I've fought some spriggans, and they do bizarre things when they die. Holy thrashing flying ragdolls, Batman! Seriously, those corpses just wig out, spin around in circles, distort, and flop their way across the screen only to wind up suspended in mid-air. Probably something to do with them dying while enlarged.

Magic Vestment isn't working on shields. Specifically, Valerie's tower shield. Maybe it was never working? That's a bummer. I still cast it anyway 'cuz I'm stubborn.

The Professor's Hat is doing bizarre things to encumbrance. It's giving Nok-Nok more and more personal encumbrance every time I save/load (he's up to around 2240 max weight), and when I'm on the road it's doing the same thing to party encumbrance. I think party encumbrance is up to 1970? In town it's only 790 (the hat is doing nothing for party encumbrance in town). Very buggy. It also seems to drastically increase my actual weight carried when I hit the road.

There were a few others but those were the big ones.

I started a new run, trying to defeat the Stag Lord in less than 30 days. Second attempt - the first one I was thirteen hours too late. :-(

Seems to be going okay, though there's a lot of heavy loot lying around the Stolen Lands right now. :-)

One hint: carry rations. Rest, use rations, but also hunt. It saves time. And travel as light as you can. Leave anything you don't sell and aren't going to immediately need (food, old coins, broken bits of gear, etc.) in the chest upstairs in Oleg's. Oh, and carry a rope. Just in case. :-)

Friend of mine passed me in his run through a couple days ago. He was doing Varnhold last I talked to him, and his Barony, which he put on auto, is "Crumbling". I decided not to put it on auto. :-)

Auto is . . . interesting. It won't do anything unless you wait in the throneroom at least once. Then it seems to start doing stuff, some of the time. It even succeeds at some optional stuff.

More feedback for devs.

I finished the cyclops story arc. It seemed hollow somehow? All the parts involving the barbarians and sisters directly were fleshed-out, but when traveling to the three locations to find sisters, it seemed like only one of the locations had any serious thought given to level design. The Sepulcher was interesting and had a good puzzle in it. City of Hollow Eyes and the Mound just seemed um. Barebones? So little work had been put into these areas compared to the Season of Bloom areas (which were many, various, and well-thought-out, mostly).

Vordakai's Tomb was arguably too long. It's like all the work that went into that area should have been spread out between City of Hollow Eyes and Forsaken Mound. Don't get me wrong, the dungeon design was fine, and it was probably the second-best area in the story arc (behind the Sepulcher). It just went on forever.

Also I'm a little pissed that the only way to "save" Tristian is to pick just the right dialogue options (most of them good-aligned). That's bad for those of us who assiduously want/need not to be good-aligned. Fortunately I got him back, and surprise he was working for Nyrissa the whole time! And so were the Sisters! Girl gets around. At least now I know what the deal was with that locked fortress door from way earlier in the game.

The barbarian invasion was great hack n' slash. I kinda wish Tenebrous Depths could be a little bit more like that, instead of room-to-room plodding. Not 100% sure I like that they pulled Tristian AND Amiri at about the same time, forcing me to hire a substitute for Tristian (sorry, not sold on Harrim) and slot Regongar for Amiri where he's generally a downgrade. Then after finally freeing Amiri, she walks all the way back to the capital instead of giving me the chance to put her in the party then-and-there, forcing me to walk back and get her, rest, and return to the Six Bears camp to complete that quest (which I can't do without her).

Now that I've got Tristian back, I'm not sure I want to use his blind #$*%@$(%. His substitute - named Substitute - is a Cleric/Sorcerer/MT and he has some distinct advantages (and disadvantages). His domain powers are worthless (let's face it, Tristian's mostly are too), and he can't channel healing worth a darn, but being able to use Sorcerer spell slots for unprepared Cleric spells is really cool.

edit: woops I didn't name the sub Substitute. I named him Replacement. And so far he's replacing Tristian pretty well.

More feedback time.

The game feels a bit more . . . aimless now that I've gotten past Armag? At least with him I knew what I was doing and why. Yeah, Nyrissa is still plotting to send armies through her portal, but otherwise I spent most of my time wandering around mapping stuff once I gained access to Pitax. Irovetti is plotting against me, but the only thing substantial he's done is throw a tournament (that made me insanely more powreful) and trick me into attacking one of his own merchant houses (that made me slightly more powerful).

On to the Rushlight Tournament.

Holy storybook xp, Batman! I got over 120k xp just from the first round. Save scumming helped, of course, but still: this game has tilted heavily towards skill checks for xp. It's ridiculous! The toughest mobs you can fight right now net you maybe 1900 xp. But make a DC 50 Trickery skill check and you get over 60k in one shot. Boom! Level up. Because you put some mud in jars. Even quest XP rewards are dwarfed by storybook xp. Ditto for conversations, since I've seen DCs go in the high 30s recently. I don't care about my alignment or RP anymore! Just pick the high DC option and rack up that sweet, sweet xp.

Anyone else think that's bad game design? Cuz you know, it kinda is.

edit: oh, and I ran into mandragora swarms. They don't seem THAT bad since after they ate Nok Nok and Valerie (and eventually Amiri), I remembered that Heal removes all STR damage and just had my Str-based Cleric main wipe them out. All he did was slash them to death with a +4 fauchard. Had I handled the encounter better, I could have saved Nok Nok and Amiri long enough for them to add to the damage, and the fight would have gone a lot better.

Probably easier to load XP onto quest rewards/story advancement. Random encounter grinding is something you do get in cRPGs that you don't get on tabletop (necessarily; a few DMs might put up with aimless wandering, or might base their entire campaign off that). Also, if the game handled encounter XP correctly, you would stop earning as much XP from monsters if the CR of the encounter got too low for the party.

I'm up to level 18 now, and I'm still earning 9 XP from things like kobolds and goblins. Or whatever paltry sum it is. That value should be 0.

Fortunately I have encountered a few mobs that crack 10k XP, including the Spawn of Ravagug that gave something like 41k. Which is respectable. He was kind of a pita since he is the only mob I've encountered thus far that knows how to use dispelling effects. I still can't figure out what all he was doing to me. Feeblemind? On everyone? Or something? I dunno, he disabled spells and I was too lazy to read through all the backlogs and pause to study what was going on. I did notice him dispelling a lot and throwing black gobs of . . . whatever that was. His dps was pretty sad though. Most of my damage came from him confusing/dominating my party members. That's what I get for neglecting to use Holy Aura (or similar). Oh well! Live and learn. His AC was pretty respectable-ish. I'll give him/it credit for that.

But wow Farnirras was a letdown! The party just Leroy Jenkinsed his bony butt. He was down in maybe two rounds (or less). His buddies were gone in one more round. Nobody could see invisible so the Mystic Theurge mercenary and Linzi just hung out in the back not doing anything. Which is what they normally do anyway.

The only problem I've had recently is with Prismatic Spray turning my people into dogs. It seems impossible to Break Enchantment or Remove Curse mid-combat (it just doesn't work?) so I have to finish the fight with a few doggos or reload. Every one has juiced-up saving throws, but I keep getting unlucky rolls on that one effect, and I have no idea why. On the flipside, I've started using Prismatic Spray over Valerie's objections. She'll be fine. I haven't sent her to another dimension. Yet.

I did enjoy raiding Irovetti's palace, though that wizard in the basement was annoying as all get out. It took forever to beat him to death. Stupid vampiric shield on a ghost, of all the nerve. He still lost. Ghost kingdom indeed. In fact that fight was probably harder than Irovetti himself. Or the naga.

The most idiotic thing I ran into though was the monks trying to give me some pacification spell that I can't use unless I'm good-aligned. Maybe that spell was supposed to be for Tristian? I relegated him to stay-at-home status, and my Mystic Theurge only casts as a 7th level Cleric so they gave it to my neutral Crusader of Gorum (main). Guaranteeing I'll never use that spell. Thanks, guys!

You think the developers should have thought that one through a little better? Divine casters change alignment at their own peril.

I've dropped the current game at the entrance to the . . . final dungeon, whatever it is. Companions went missing except my merc, and then the first two companions I run into the house are the kineticists? Oooh I do hate them. They seemed so useless when I used them. Missing all the time with whatever those powers are that they have. I mean, really. And I haven't leveled them up since they were 12, so now I have to level them up again?

I briefly entertained the idea of going back to an old save, hiring 4 more mercs, and taking them in to finish the final area. It'll only cost me around 720k gold.

Anyway what I actually did was backtrack and try Varnhold's Lot. How interesting! Someone else gets to play at baron. And honestly the game seems a lot better that way. Only downsides:

1). Baron asks my advice too often (really)
2). At least one of the "quests" I went on seems like a barony project that has been assigned to me, meaning I can't fall back on the rest of my party to help me do it. Fortunately I had enough diplomacy to see it through.
3). Baron insists on adventuring, which means he's in the main party and which means I can't choose where to go on the map

If the main game had been like Varnhold's Lot with the baron sitting his happy butt in the capitol doing the baron-ing, it would have been a better game. And I'd like to have my full party available for nearly everything, thanks. Pity the main game couldn't have been more like this though. Heck it even let me configure 4 out of my 6 party members by hand! Without charging me extra to do so! How about that?

Man, I really love Vordakai's tomb. So much fun, and very diverse combat. The spectral ghosts can be a pain with all that level drain crap, but it went fine this time. And of course, those demons in the room Tristian isn't a huge fan of is bloody fantastic.

Sort of on that note: Second playthrough and having the luxury of knowing what happens, and I'm seeing a lot of Tristian's comments throughout the game with new eyes. Holy shitstick what an unmitigated arse. But putting the analytics glasses on, it's nice that basically every companion in the game has some kind of flaw or "issue", and isn't the usual cardboard cutouts we see in many games these days.

Can't say I've noticed anything that carried over from the Varnhold's Lot DLC yet, but maybe it will crop up later. I just finished the chapter, with all that crap happening now. Half the crew gone, or so it feels, plus other stuff on top. Think they went a bit overboard with that tbh. Would be better to divide it up more.

As for the DLC's gameplay... it worked fine to be a hanger-on for such a brief campaign, but it would have been terrible in the main game. RPGs are supposed to have options and freedom, and not be a railroaded game like so many other AAAs they churn out these days.

Being a baron/king takes away a lot of your freedom. I agree that having to go where Varn wants to go stinks. That I could do without. But making him handle the kingdom management? Priceless.

Update: I finally finished the game, albeit on a second playthrough. I had gotten as far as the entrance of the House on my previous playthrough, found myself bereft of all my party members except for my Mystic Theurge who replaced Tristian (quite well, I might add), and threw in the towel when I got majorly bad vibes off the whole thing. I might try to go back and salvage that game, or I might not, but is it worth the effort? Probably not.

Second playthrough:

I left Kingdom Management on Effortless, and still got frustrated with how much crap requires you to sit in the throneroom and do nothing else for 14 days, and how certain problems crop up riiiiiight when you're trying to upgrade an advisor (which takes too long) or annex some territory (which also takes too long) etc. So I got annoyed and installed a mod that lets me resolve anything in 1 day and I easy-streeted it for the rest of the game. In theory that mod + auto mode may produce some really nice results, except for the fact that auto never builds teleport circles (I guess?). Teleport circles make Puja the Wolf's quest actually quite easy. Just use that plus the Heart of Ira and it's an easy win.

Anyway second playthrough, Normal mode:

Valerie/FakeValerie (Shield Specialist 9 Stalwart Defender 10)
Bishop Bruiser (standard Cleric of Gorum 19)
Nok-Nok/NotNokNok (Knife Master 19)
MetaDruid (main) (Defender of the True World 19 - Smilodon)
Linzi/FakeLinzi (Bard 19)
LameSorc (Sylvan Sorcerer 19 - Smilidon)

Immediately prior to entering the House, I replaced all my story-mode NPCs in rotation with mercenaries made to ape the originals faithfully. Only major differences: FakeValerie starts with 13 Int instead of 15 Cha, so she can get Combat Expertise honestly; FakeLinzi has slightly different stats which proved irrelevant in the end; NotNokNok is a Tielfling instead of a Goblin so he loses 2 points of Dex and the small-sized race benefits and gains in some other areas. Also I changed NotNokNok's Rogue specials a tiny bit, but not to any major extent.

Bishop Bruiser is a respin of my main character from the first playthrough. Instead of using Crusader, I went straight Cleric, and I went straight for fauchards once I found a good one. Overall he came up short on a few feats (no Heavy Armor proficiency; he had a +5 Breastplate of some kind instead; no Weapon Focus on anything; no Armor Focus), but I used my knowledge from the first playthrough to buy into Combat Reflexes (after I found him +6 dex stuff) and Sieze the Moment which I never did with my main from the last playthrough. Big improvement in damage output when focusing the same target as the party Rogue.

MetaDruid is just a boring Druid buff-bot with a Smilodon. He spent most of the game throwing darts to stay out of the way. Wildshaping was . . . unimpressive. All I did was start with high Con and high Wis, and high enough Int to get Combat Expertise (which I wound up never using), and uh that was about it. Most of his feats were kinda wasted or forgettable "anyone can use that" stuff like Shake it Off, Toughness, Allied Spellcaster, etc. I picked up Spell Focus: Transmutation but never used it much when it turned out that Baleful Polymorph is buggy as hell and can prevent looting. Was gonna use Heighten Spell to have a ton of those prepared, and honestly it might have been a good idea against some of the things in the final dungeon, but in the rest of the game? No way. Instead I just spammed Creeping Doom/Extended Creeping Doom when I felt like it, which was more for yucks than for its effectiveness (it really did work pretty well on some opponents).

LameSorc was Evocation All Day Long (tm). I had him slamming entire encounters for 290 damage with Thunderbolts and the Grandmaster's Rod + that stupid rod that turns everything to fire damage. Boom! Otherwise he was just there to provide a Smilodon for most of the game, and cast Haste and Improved Invisibility every now and then. Oh, and Mage Armor on the Smilidons, plus sometimes Heroic Invocation. Oh what a sweet spell that is!

Anyway enough of that.

My earlier commentary still obtains, only I must add that real kingdom management somehow manages to be not that much worse than auto. Auto still makes you do a lot of work. Kingdom management itself starves you of "human" resources early on, and then provides you with too much time to do things later in the game. Of course I made things a lot worse in that regard with a mod. When all actions take 1 day, you have hundreds of days to fritter away, but even without that, I can see the late game being almost as boring. There's too much time available before and after Irovetti/Pitax.

As for the House, what can I say? Power creep got extreme through Pitax - Irovetti died like a dog AGAIN, though I killed him even faster this time - only for the devs to be all "oops gotta make the game harder now let's be jackasses". What breaks a lot of power builds in Pathfinder? Stuff that's crit immune, sneak immune, and has really high saves. I know! Let's use lame ghosts. I've totally done that to players in 3.5, but I don't remember ghosts in 3.5 taking half damage from everything . . . or whatever it is those ghosts in Kingmaker have going on. Also my players would do the smart thing and get ghost touch weapons, which are pretty rare in Kingmaker. Yeah I could still roll them most of the time once I got my positioning correct, but damn it was annoying. They just HAD to include the Mage Guards that spam disease at you (albeit with low save DCs). Once I figured out the group composition, I could still use the usual tactics - run off long-term buffs and send FakeValerie straight up the middle. The trick was not overextending with anyone else, and eventually I figured out that FakeValerie could tank entire groups of ghosts on her own with no real help for long enough that she could just melee the Mage Guards to death on her own (that flail that gives -1 AC on hit helped). So that's what I started doing. The ghost encounters were more annoying than deadly. Who likes wasting resources cleaning up Blinding Sickness and Str damage after every encounter? I bought scrolls for it - dozens of them - and had I been less prickly I should have just used those. It was the "last dungeon", right? Right?

Wild hunt encounter design was confusingly bad. I didn't realize that you had to kill the Master before anyone nearby would die - including golems apparently? I had killed the others earlier in the game with Ira cheese, and I don't think those mobs had that capability though I could be wrong. I couldn't get Blind Fight on my pets, so while they had Freedom of Movement, the gaze attacks could still fear them off which was really stupid. They would run into other encounters and other crap. It's classic "they'll roll a 1 eventually!" encounter design. Also sometimes NotNokNok would arbitrarily stop doing much damage to the scouts, and I still can't figure out why. He had Blind Fight so the gaze attacks did nothing to him.

The medusa encounters were "okay" though they would just kill people outright instead of turning them to stone, and again, couldn't give Blind Fight to my pets so whatever. I Ira cheesed the one big Medusa encounter and just bumrushed the rest of them with decent results.

Also, in case anyone needs a way to deal with Mandragora Swarms, it's Fiery Body. Well it's an option anyway. When your Sorcerer can tank swarms better than your Stalwart Defender.

Anyway most of the encounters seemed a). superfluous and b). repetitive. It was a tiresome slog by the end. So I get to Nyrissa, blah blah blah FIGHT and she goes down in one round. I fully buffed out the party, and the damage Bishop Bruiser could do in that state is pretty extreme. Something like +63 damage per hit, and that's without a crit? 3d8 + 63, +53 to hit, 15-20 threat range, 30' reach, and he's scoring attacks of opportunity off every crit NotNokNok and FakeValerie get (and vice versa). Ridiculous! I kind of wish I had been able to sustain that buff level against all the encounters but I don't like resting that much. He only gets 38 rounds of Transformation max, and that's due to a rod.

Nyrissa dies, I execute her, and the Lantern King wrecks my kingdom and curses me. Reload. Nyrissa dies, and I give her the damn cup and tell her to leave me alone, which she does. Problem solved, game over. Did any dev think that I wanted to slog through even more crap, with a curse, just to face the Lantern King? Nope. Bye. Can't say I'm sorry to see Nyrissa become permanently miserable. At least my kingdom is safe. Couldn't really avenge all the other people that Nyrissa murdered throughout the years. Oh well! Too bad, get me out of here kthxbye.

I would have been okay with throwing down with the Lantern King right then and there, since most of my buffs were still running anyway. But all that other crap? I read up on it. No thanks.

edit: double post

Aww. Just think about those 100 other Wild Hunt fights you missed :P

Congrats for finishing the game. It's a really good one, but the last stretch is a pain. I'm there myself in the second playthrough, and it's been sitting there for a couple weeks now (beat Nyrissa). Apart from the copy-pasted fights I kinda like the 'story' of taking a stab at the Lantern King -- it's just so bloody aweful to go through a zillion copy pasted fights. It's not difficult, it's just slow and boring.

There's more of those? Really? Who greenlit that? Couldn't they come up with something else to fight instead of crystal crystal crystal crystal

Also all they try to do is kill your party Cleric, which is funny when it's your Sorcerer that's capable of ending most of the encounter in one round. Okay fine the Cleric was devastating when fully-buffed but still. Lame.

Also some oversights that grind my gears more now than my first playthrough:

Why can't you use healing potions on pets? Or any potions? You can order them to drink in PnP. In Kingmaker they just gloss over the entire inventory screen so you can't access anything that would let you feed a potion to a pet. Also, to use a scroll or wand on a pet, you have to drag it to someone's belt and then target the pet from the standard ui instead of being able to right-click the scroll/wand in the inventory and use it there (which is a lot faster, normally).

Why can't you "hold the charge" as a full-round action on a benign touch-range spell and then touch up to six willing targets? I'm not supposed to have to cast Freedom of Movement 6 times on six people. One spell is supposed to cover everyone, and one more for the animal companions (assuming party of 6). I waste a ton of spell slots on buffs that you shouldn't have to cast over and over again! Also the Cure Light/Moderate/etc. line of spells is a LOT weaker as result.

Why can't my friendly AoE spells like Haste and Prayer help the swarms I summon via Creeping Doom?

Why is Magic Vestment still broken for shields?