No, the mechanic hasn't changed - its me misremembering information lol

Sorry, the "special" loot drops from random mobs not bosses. But I am still correct on "super special" loot.

Oh wow, I'm guessing you have better understanding than me in terms of class building then - I never played above normal.

And no - you don't need to have magic heavy group, I just like caster classes :)

As I said before, there is really no point continue further once you defeated bosses - might as well retire and start a new session.

Once you get past level 30, the dungeon just spams Wild Hunts and Prismatic golems. I only pushed to level 50 once just to get the achievement.

Level 50? Good grief! :o

I stopped the current run at 36. Took a couple rooms there to get the ding to level 20. And it was cancerous to say the least. In that last fight, two people turned into beasts and two others died. Several skillfully crafted golems (or something like that), plus a host of others, and they were spamming prismatic spray, which there is zero defence against. People will randomly die or get otherwise taken out. And worst part was almost that I couldn't return them to normal. Not the lousy dragon either. Because the remove curse scroll is only caster level 5, and the curse was DC 24. Do the math. I bought a whole bunch and none succeeded. And ofc one of the people transformed was the cleric. Ended up sending them to their deaths just so I could revive and level them up to 20 and retire them all in peace. I can't imagine how horrible it must be further down.

Don't think there is a big difference between normal and challenging difficulty though. Maybe enemies have 2 higher AC or something like that? Perhaps DC is affected too. Mostly the big difference is that by default there isn't death's door nor removal of effects upon rest (see above, groan). Sure, I could change that (which then changes the difficulty to "custom"), but most of the time it isn't an issue, and I kinda like the need for all those lesser restoration and suchlike potions we get.

Honestly, though, is there really any change at all to the merchants after going so deep? Maybe there is +1 item per 5 or 10 levels? I tried starting a new save after that group, and I can't tell that there is any change at all in the merchant selection. Still a very bad crop, much worse this time than the last actually, though I was probably lucky there. A thousand masterworks, every +1 weapon, plus a small random selection of others. If there is more than when you start fresh with no save to base stuff on, it is definitely not easy to spot. I sorted by value descending and there is only a handful of items. This time only a longbow could potentially be of use. Doesn't work to start over either, as it's always the same loot and boon. This part has actually been very disappointing to me. Really hoped I would see a much better selection now after getting to level 36, which I thought was pretty darn deep given the insane difficulty down there. Yeah.. others probably get to level 150 or whatever, but that's not for normal human beings :sad:

Thinking about a new party now, and I did like that last lot, and it's so hard to decide. Spent several hours yesterday until it got light outside, and couldn't decide on anything while clicking through a hundred classes :D

Are paladins any good? Bards? Can the latter contribute enough besides buffing? The pure slayer I used last time was great, so maybe she'll re-appear, but I also hear they can be great ranged.

Do you go with melee clerics? I worry they won't be able to heal and such in a pinch if they get AoO'ed for example. Not sure how that works, but a dead cleric is kinda useless :-/

Sorry for the posts, but I want to get past that soulcrushing limitations :(

Figured I'd write up about that last party, since they got to level 20. If you have feedback on them I'd love to hear it, as I'm sure there must be some mistakes here and there. Apart from the Duelist, which is almost a carbon copy of Roahin's build from the GOG forums, I selected feats on a whim based on what was available at the time. Although I did try to complement them with crits and attack of opportunity (AoOs).

Was also a bit confused by the level of the cleric's animal. Thought Boon Companion would get it to level 20, but it stayed at 16 at the end? What's up with that? :confused:

(Hopefully the stats are correct, as I'm looking at them at level 20 while 'naked', so there are 5 points invested somewhere while levelling up)
---------------

Sword Saint 10 / Duelist 10
Human (NG)
Weapon: Dueling sword

11 STR
19 DEX (24)
14 CON
16 INT
10 WIS
7 CHA

Feats:
Weapon finesse, Slashing grace (dueling sword), Aldori dueling mastery, Dodge, Imp. unarmed strike, Crane style, Crane Wing, Combat reflexes (not sure if this was automatic or selected), Combat expertise, Extended magic, Empowered magic, Weapon specialisation (dueling sword), Improved critial (dueling sword), Blind fight

-----------

Fighter 10 / Stalwart defender 10
Human (CN)
Weapon: Falcata + tower shield

18 STR
16 DEX
20 CON
7 INT
10 WIS
7 CHA
(not sure what I started with here, but whatever works out pointbuy wise for 20)

Feats:
Imp. unarmed strike, Dodge, Shield focus, Crane style, Heavy armor focus, Outflank, Crane wing (it works for some reason), Weapon proficiency (falcata), Toughness, Weapon focus (falcata), Impr. critical (falcata), Iron will, Weapon specialisation (falcata), Blind fight, Deflect arrows, Greater shield focus, Crane riposte

---------

Slayer 20
Human (CG)
Weapon: Fauchard (reach)

19 STR (24)
14 DEX
16 CON
7 INT
10 WIS
7 CHA
(Very sorry for the stupid minmaxing, but this mode kinda asks for it :-/ )

Feats:
Armor proficiency (heavy armor), Power attack, Cleave, Accomplished sneak attacker, Outflank, Weapon proficiency (fauchard), Weapon focus (fauchard), Combat reflexes, Cleaving finish, Improved critical (fauchard), Opportunist, Great cleave, Dreadful carnage, Iron will, Crippling strike, Improved iron will, Blind fight, Critical focus, Staggering critical, Improved initiative, Dispelling attack

------------

Knife master (20)
Tiefling (CN) (Hellspawn)
Weapon: Kukri + kukri

10 STR (11)
18 DEX (22)
16 CON
10 INT
14 WIS
5 CHA (ooof)

Feats:
Weapon finesse, Skill focus (trickery), Canny observer, Martial weapon proficiency, Finesse training (kukri), Two-weapon fighting, Weapon focus (kukri), Piranha strike, Double slice, Impr. two-weapon fighting, Outflank, Crippling strike, Improved critical (kukri), Opportunist, Critical focus, Double debilitation, Greater two-weapon fighting, Blind fight, Iron will, Sickening critical, Impr. iron will, Combat reflexes (figured it would be wasted, but took it here at 20)

------------------

Cleric (20) (Erastil)
Human (LN)
Weapon: Longbow

12 STR
14 DEX
12 CON
12 INT
19 WIS (24)
7 CHA

Feats:
Point blank shot, precise shot, Weapon focus (longbow), Boon companion (picked leopard earlier), Metamagic (extend, but I never used this), Deadly aim, Improved critical (longbow), Rapid shot, Clustered shots, Blind fight, Manyshot

---------------

Sorcerer (20) (Arcane bloodline)
Half-elf (N)
Weapon: quarterstaff or crossbow, but using spells / cantrips

8 STR
14 DEX
12 CON
12 INT
10 WIS
19 CHA (24)

Feats:
Skill focus (perception), Point blank shot, Spell focus (evocation), Precise shot, Greater spell focus (evocation), Combat casting, Spell penetration, Greater spell penetration, Improved initiative, Metamagic (empower), Iron will, Metamagic (maximise), Metamagic (heighten), Spell focus (necromancy), Greater spell focus (necromancy)

----------------

That's a long overview, but if nothing else it will be useful for myself to have it written down somewhere, if I decide to go with any of these characters later. Felt like a pretty strong group, and the slayer and rogue were sneak attacking and critting and AoO-ing quite regularly. Against high DR it's probably required tbh. Practically all golems down there have DR 20 against everything, so it's hard to do much damage with regular attacks, or even most spells.

Please let me know if I've done any howlers. Also, I do wonder about the cleric and boon companion. Thought it was really weird the leopard ended up as level 16 given what that feat is supposed to do.

Obviously not an OP party given how tricky it became against Wild Hunt and super golem spams, but until then it was for the most part fun. Much less so when characters keep getting one-shot to random crap.

Perhaps it shows here, but I'm not a fan of all the weird multiclassing and dips into this and that. Surely not EVERY character needs a dip into monk or vivi or whatever? :sad:

IIRC, it doesn't get worse - its just repeat of same enemies with slight different combination.

I never played on challenging difficulty so no clue how different it is to normal :P

The Honest Guy's loot table def expanded for me over time but I can't remember what caused it :/ I'm guessing it depends on your last run's score (you know how you get scores and perks when you retire your party? That I think). Also, it may be that those loots unlock as you go further down the dungeon in your current run.

In short, your last run's score unlock the requirement of loot expansion but you won't see new items until you progress further down the current dungeon level - again, may not be correct. I'm relying on memory and I haven't played BtSL for last 2 years.

I initially started to play BtSL to try out new classes and builds but eventually ended up liking a certain party combination so much, I kept running same group later on :) so it became more of "learn to better play with my fav group"!

As I said earlier, I'm not well versed with builds so I can't tell you much (I just picked whatever abilities/spells sounds cool since I only play on normal) so my party was nowhere near optimal. I'm more of "let's go try random build I like on normal difficulty" than optimising my buils by reading guide etc, its more fun imo ;)

Paladin is pretty good but they rely a lot on buffing so beware of dispells. My main party consisted of paladin tank and crusader (melee cleric archetype). My crusader was same build as my main charcater in the main campaign and she was jack of all trade - off tank/off heal/off buffer/off meelee dps. Worked out pretty well in my party tho ;)

Edit: you can also jump on discord if you want advice from people who know more - there's build chat is which is dedicated for people seeking out for build advice.

Thanks for the info.

Perhaps I need more runs to see it better, but so far at least I can't really say I've noticed new items as I went further down. Played a new run yesterday, but only to level 15 where we faced a boss. Can empathise with what you say about playing with a set party once you land on something fun. The one I had yesterday wasn't as exciting. Tried a paladin (hospitaler) and grenadier. But I've no idea how to build any of them tbh, especially the alchemist. Everything is so different and confusing. I'm not really that much into theorycrafting or whatever. What I end up with is mostly okay, tho I have also used builds by others for the main character a few times. Did wonder about trying out a monk, but no idea how to build or play with those either tbh. Guess it has always felt more fitting, for lack of a better word, to use the more familiar classes from BG and suchlike :blush:

I haven't played around with many classes myself - besides my fav party I described earlier, I tried kineticist knight as a tank which was fun but I liked paladin more.

One of the most famous cheese dip in Kingmaker was 1level in vivisectionist (alchemist archetype) - from my lack of understanding, it was popular due to mutagen buff & sneak attack abilities. I ended up loving this cheese so much myself, I used it for my Eldritch Knight as well. She was my experimental build which ended up something silly as:

Ranger 1/vivisectionist 1/mage x/EK10/AT y

Again, I have no idea on what's optimal or not but I basically went with this because ranger provide better BAB than rogue but can still use DEX rather than STR as major stat, vivi for sneak attack and mutagen buff + AT later for more sneak attack & ranged touch attack (spells).

I had a lot of fun with her.

Mind you, my Aracane Trickster had very similar class composition but levelled as AT first before EK lol

Thanks, that does make sense. I hadn't been able to find any info on how this aspect actually works. But I also have problems noting any new items in their shops over time.

Haven't used Discord for a long while now, but what would the channel ID thingy be?

I've had fun trying out different classes too. Though I've made more than a few howlers. Like just now.. Wanted to try a pure vivisectionist, to see what all the talk about them was like. At some point during level 2 or 3: "Hmm, why isn't there a bomb icon with high number next to it on the action bar..? Oh! Guess they can't use bombs :sad: " That's after picking feats for bomb usage :D She has been relegated to using a crossbow now, which is okay I guess.

Also made a mistake with the new slayer. Thought I could pick freely from the combat style feats, but apparently if you pick one feat from any of the styles, you get locked into that style. I was going to take from the menacing style, but also picked up Cleave or something from two-handed weapon, and that was that. No longer available.

But I suppose it's better to make mistakes in this mode than if I had tried out these classes in the main game, and spent 100 hours on them already.

A shame it gets so much more difficult around level 30, tho. It's been pretty smooth sailing so far, despite those mistakes, and we're down to level 22 without facing a boss yet. Throughout the runs, we've found 7 lore pieces, and thus far at least, none have been duplicates. So I hold out some hope the game keeps track of them, and won't give one we already have.

Going without a cleric is going to prove overly optimistic I think… :D This is the current group:

Hospitaler (paladin) with sword and board. Not great AC, but it's been tolerable so far
Fighter/stalwart, like before. Whatever weapon + tower shield
Slayer reach with fauchard and cleave line. An absolute beast! One-shotting big baddies left and right
Vivisectionist with crossbow. Has some buff spells I see
Deliverer (slayer) ranged. Pretty strong too. Particularly when crits land due to finding a nice +3 bow with x4 crits
Sage sorcerer (INT based). Much as before, but wanted to try it out. Nice with so many skill points.

Am lacking a specialist in Knowledge Religion as it turned out, but it's not a huge deal. The vivi is the trap disabler, which has worked well for now with skill spec into trickery. Have one or two people with spec into Perception too, since it's so important in this mode.

Hopefully will face a boss on level 25 soon. After that, maybe I'll try the same group again, but hopefully without fudging the builds. Looks like Sage sorcerer is pretty much a carbon copy of Sorcerer with arcane bloodline, apart from being INT based instead of CHA. That is kinda nice, because it fits well with skill points galore. Plus, it's comfy to have somebody to lug +INT items on. Reason I went for this, was that I saw the evil-aligned Soul staff was available in the shop, the one we get in the Varnhold DLC. It adds +4 INT.

A picture of the fairly frequent Rhiannon crits, the slayer reach character

https://i.imgur.com/NQS85V5.jpg

Oh, and that build of yours sounds pretty complex with five different classes :o Did spell advancement add up between Eldritch Knight and Arcane trickster?

Here's the link to Owlcat Pathfinder discord server:

https://discord.gg/mZAK9QNb

Yes, that's what I loved about BtSL - you level quite quick here so you can try out new class/build easily :D I never tried pure vivisectionist or slayer but it sounded like they are both melee class for me, guess I was wrong and they can work well as a range!

I'm guessing your hospitaler is your healer? Wow, you are doing very well imo, getting to level 22 without cleric!


From my experience, perception is very important in both Kingmaker and WotR, so I tried to have almost everyone in my party have have decent perception (you just never know when someone might roll 1 and miss the important perception checks!)

Sounds like a good idea ;)

Wow, nice chunky damages :D

I think spell advancement do add up but not 100% sure XD

Slayers are a bit OP and they actually have unpatched bugs which make them more powerful than they are supposed to be. Their Studied target ability actually stacks everytime it triggers when it is not supposed to stack so after a few rounds they basically have unmissable attacks. By level 20 it is a stacking +5 per attack they make (assume sneak attack).

Thanks for the link, I'll fire up Discord again and see what's in there. Maybe they have a channel for BTSL or something.

Slayers are really versatile actually, so they can be specced into ranged or melee, which is why I went with two slayers this time (but one of them the deliverer archetype). They get full BAB (like fighters) and also a decent bit of sneak attacks. Not as much as rogues, but still very useful in this mode with so many high-HP enemies. Can also pick (some) rogue talents like crippling strike. And what was really cool, is that they can bypass some of the pre-requisites, which is perhaps most useful for Dreadful Carnage. Probably only works via the combat styles, which we can take two or three of (don't recall). Maybe next time through I won't mess that up! :D

Yeah, the paladin is sort-of the healer. But between all the healing potions we get, I tend to blow a good bunch of those, plus channel energy out of combat. One feature I really like with the paladin is the ability to lay on hands and remove status effects from mercies. That's actually very useful in this mode, because curses and suchlike is common. Some of the golems toss out "stunned" like candy too, which the paladin is now able to remove with mercy-stunned, while mercy-confusion can take away insanity. Mostly fit for post-combat cleanup, but very useful.

The vivesectionist also gets some buffs I see, so between them and the sorcerer, we're doing okay. the Vivi got Heal as a level 6 spell (they can't go higher). So we won't have access to mass heal, which is rather literally a life saver when things go badly against all these crazy golems and wild hunts. So that will surely be a huge miss when those lot show up more frequently. But for now we have been getting along okay :)

That's interesting, because in some cases I had noticed that an enemy could have two instances of "Studied target". But assumed it was due to two slayers with that innate ability. Searched around, and apparently this was an issue in the past -- but got patched out in the 2.0.8 version two years ago. Sorry for the sort-of steam link, but check here: https://steamdb.info/patchnotes/4587705/
I'm "only" on the 2.1.5d version, because stupid Owlcat or GOG haven't released the 2.1.7 build for us Linux users :(

Have also researched it in-game now against a pack of nasty golems. Sometimes stuff dies too quickly when crits land, but as far as I can tell from slowly going through this on several golems, the bonuses don't stack. Doesn't look like there is the UI of several stacking studied targets either, because it kept staying at one instance when only one slayer was attacking a target. With both, they get a "studied target" line each, but those are personal so don't add up. And when I checked out hit bonuses, there is only the one +4 studied target, even late on when the ranged slayer had used the study target ability, plus gotten in a few sneaks (which will apply it automatically).

Tried to show it with some screenshots, but it's a little hard to see what is going on from only a few pictures.

This shows two instances of Studied Target, but that was with both slayers having attacked it.

https://i.imgur.com/zcgU0qu.jpg

Only Aelirenn, the ranged slayer, attacked this one, until the others managed to take down the other buggers. She had used the study target swift ability, and gotten in 2-3 hits. Still, the bonus "only" shows one +4.

https://i.imgur.com/5xCH2wH.jpg

So as far as I can tell, this is no longer an issue :)
That said, seems like the Slayer class is pretty strong. More importantly for me, tho, they are FUN to use :D

Also, holy mercy that's a crit and a half! :o

https://i.imgur.com/sF3E3GW.jpg

Crazy with high damage like that, and it actually happens fairly regularly due to crit range of 15-20 now on the fauchard. Bit of a glass cannon, but as long as she doesn't get focused on, she can hold her own for a little while. still only using medium armor, as I haven't spent a feat on heavy armor proficiency. (And I want to stay away from 1-level dips, but a fighter dip would be useful I suppose).

Anywho… met the boss at level 30 here and thankfully beat them. Nasty to meet our first skillfully crafted golden golem there, with its horrible spray. But amusingly enough, it hit one of the Captives, and turned it into a beast :biggrin: That made things a "little" easier, haha

Edit: Found a picture of it

https://i.imgur.com/rQPbIYz.jpg

That's wierd, I thought I played on the final version but there must of been a couple of patches after. Great to hear it has been fixed - although to be honest I kind of enjoyed the power ;) I never tried a reach weapon slayer - it looks like it works well.

They don't have BtSL chat but builds chat & Kingmaker chat in general

I tend to horde potions and scrolls, hardly ever use them XD

Yes, I love lay on hands ability for the very reason you pointed out :D

You got very lucky there ;)

Which boss did you find most difficult? I absolutely hated Chanter - not that I had issues killing him but:



:/

Yep, definitely very lucky :P I dreaded what was about to happen when I saw a super-golem in there. And then he actually helped me out (thankfully we made our saves that time).

Actually haven't fought the Wicked Chanter yet. He must be the one at level 25. Recall having big problems with the Captive and Captor in the normal campaign, getting ice prisoned or something like that. In this mode so far, I think the Fallen Priestess was worst. Maybe partly because we are lower level then and she can (and did) one-shot our characters with Finger of Death or whatever it was she used. Others 'turned' due to her aura, and there was also a pack of mobs that wreaked havoc on us. She also creates a pit under the casters, so they will often get taken out of the fight right away.

It's the fight where the cleric (that I had then) was the only survivor, and had to leg it out of the dungeon, and then revive all the others. So that is the one I had most problems with.

Looks like I need to fight them all a bunch more times, though, to get all the 20 items. As I understand it from what you wrote earlier, the last four (the special items), will only drop from the boss itself, after we have gathered the four more 'normal' items. And of course we need to face the correct boss too once that happens. So I can appreciate now why it will be needed with ~20 runs before being able to face the super baddie.

I assume it would have been destruction spell that 1 shot your party members. I usually had tank on her and used casters AoEs to kill off mobs ASAP. Yeah, the pits are nasty, always had to cross my fingers to make DEX/reflex save.

Correct on special items - I think it took me 19 runs or so ;)

I do wonder if something has changed here? Think this is only the fourth or fifth run, and we've now picked up 11 items, including 5 or 6 in this one run alone. Have pushed them to floor 57 now. Things were pretty crazy, though, and the game lagged badly in rooms with 4-5 Wild Hunt monarchs and 5 hamadryads, spamming hordes of animals and wild hunt archers and scouts. This is just… *groan* :'(

https://i.imgur.com/W9YvVgV.jpg

Had to give up fighting that head-on, and opted to toss a pit + sirocco in the doorway, pull everybody back, and try to deal with what came through. Extra bad when that happened on electricity floors, because chain lightning was kinda my go-to spell to thin out the packs, or just put a chink in their armour. Some of the later monarchs had AC in the mid-50s, which was very hard to deal with. Perception and trickery checks got close to 50 as well, which was borderline for what we could handle. Walked over several traps we didn't learn about, and I have perception skills topped on everybody, ith the best at +39. Seems like the DC increases indefinitely, which ofc our skills can't do as we level out at 20.

Rooms full of ~5 skillfully crafted golden golems spamming sprays every single round wasn't great fun either, as somebody would almost always roll 1, which means the save will fail even if they have 10 more than the DC. This happened many times with the Paladin, which has excellent saves across the board. Simply no way to handle those enemies but cross your fingers.

Having that paladin was excellent, though, because he could lay on hands on himself and remove the polymorph, and try to do that with party members too, when it was reasonably safe. And he became an excellent healer at level 20, because then all rolls are maxed out. Didn't know about that, but it's a really cool ability.

The XP was funny down there as well. Some enemies would yield 1.6 MILLION XP, which would be enough to take somebody from level 1 to 18 iirc. One freakin' enemy! :lol:

Do think I could have pushed them a little further, but things were getting pretty dicey now. Like rooms full of high-HP giant-ass priests. I didn't understand why full-health party members with 250-300 HP would suddenly grey-portray die in the blink of an eye. Then I noticed those bastards were all using empowered AND maximised negative energy waves. No wonder people kept getting one-"shot" from time to time.

So yeah, think it's time to retire the party. They did well for themselves, being mostly pure classed and all. Ended up with over 80 million XP and almost 7 million coins, with nothing to spend it on, besides yet more raise dead scrolls. Loot is totally nuts! A ring of circumstances actually dropped, and we're sporting two Onslaughts, and I've sold 4 more. Heaps upon heaps of weapons and items worth 50-70.000 each. Now +8 mental and physical perfection items are dropping, and most are wearing them.

https://i.imgur.com/8fqVMuB.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/cI6T3RI.jpg

Can't say I've noticed anything new in the merchants either. Certainly not for the dragon, tho it's ofc not so easy to spot new items by the Honest Guy, given we have sold soooo much stuff to him earlier.

Overall a pretty good journey, and this group felt pretty strong. Despite lacking a proper cleric :D

New group and didn't face a boss until level 30 again. No luck with items this time going down, we found zero. Since the shops had some great monk items (+5 fists and protector's robe), I went with a monk. She ended up doing slightly over a third of total damage, so certainly pulled her weight, but it just wasn't fun. But it could a more general thing, seems like I'm running out of steam on this thing now. Very fed up of all the buffing. Then I try to go as far as possible to avoid more time buffing. When somebody dies, the worst part is kinda the need to re-buff them again, because they lose almost all effects. Amusingly Death Ward tends to stay.

I'm not playing on Azlanti, so it's possible to reload, which is good because we died the first time agains the Captive and Captor. They've got some very nasty spells. Almost everybody got paralyzed from ice prison, and two others fell into a rift pit. The monk got out again, and was the only thing standing between the buggers and my sorcerer. She did a stellar job in there, but we failed to kill both without too much time in between, and after two respawns, they wiped us out. Finger of death or something on the sorcerer and that was that. Full health -> DEAD.

However, the next attempt went much better, and we didn't get paralyzed. Not sure if that spell failed or what happened. Managed to take them down, and all the big-ass troll elite guards. Then they dropped two rings, which appear to be the unique items for these lads. So at least we were fortunate enough to have picked up all their four items in the previous playthroughs.

Retired them just after that fight, didn't even bother going into any other rooms on the floor. Checked the merchants, I've been selling to the dragon this time. Figured it would be easier to spot new items. After that trip to floor 30, I do see at least two new items. Thundercracker wasn't there last time I checked, and don't think Faterender was either.

https://i.imgur.com/Gu136GU.jpg

I'm becoming less sure if I can go all the way though. This run was for the most part terribly boring, and I starting thinking if a solo character would be possible, as maybe that would be less hassle buffing-wise. Oh well… :-/ Stats for the group, showing the monk pulling no punches (sorry).

https://i.imgur.com/HbHu3C3.jpg

Strangely enough, we didn't face any naughty golems nor any Wild Hunt. Suppose they mostly show up after floor 30, but still, usually a few of them would appear by floor 30.

Could be a good time to take break then :) I don't mind buffing but I know a lot of people don't like it. Personally, I think its part of strategy on when to use/save buffs.

You must have made reflex(?) save on Icy Prison. IIRC, you need to kill both Captor ans Captive around same time or the other one will get back up. And yes, those rings are unqiue item for this specific boss, congrats on 1/4 unique item to unlock final boss ;)

Playing on challenging difficulty must change the approach of the game quite a lot!

I'm very approximate and lack discipline with buffing and even spells & abilities during combat, mostly regarding the different bonuses and protections. On normal difficulty it's forgiven most of the time, so I'm only buffing when there are most serious opponents.

TB mode really helps me to play more smartly, or at least to be less recklessly ;) and to pay attention to that.

What I find very difficult is to compensate the lack of spells and abilities with potions and scrolls, they usually sit there in my inventory and I'm only using a tiny part of them too. I wonder if you feel the same; if there was a separate inventory for them with a sort by type, it would make it much easier. I also feel the icons are even less clear now than what they were in Kingmaker or earlier in WotR. More stylish but harder to recognize and classify.

Actually jumped back in again… too close to give up maybe.

Aye, it was great to see those rings. Actually have never gotten them in the main game, which I assume is possible. I've just never taken all the rooms in the correct order or something, and must have faced the boss before gathering all the other items. Can easily happen.

Went back to a similar group that I enjoyed more earlier. Faced the Fallen Priestess again, and holy mother that thing is a beast. So many party ruining spells. Madness, confusion, pits and destruction -- just off the top of my head. Thankfully my sorcerer had Ice Prison, and it landed on her. Then she and her 15 minions went on to wreak havoc on us. We did manage to kill her, and funnily enough the killed sorcerer got the final 'blow' with a tick from the ice prison. She is the mascara girl to the right, heh. Four of our people lost their lives, though. The last was stuck in a pit we had no way to end due to the sorcerer being dead.

Still no sign of the level 25 boss, but any day now… :-|

https://i.imgur.com/6BPZEJx.jpg

There are some differences for sure, but don't think it's huge tbh. Haven't played normal for a long time as I've stuck to Challenging. But looking at the settings, the main differences are:
*100% damage instead of 80%
*AC and DC is +2 on Challenging
*Death's Door is ON for normal, and OFF on Challenging.

That last is a big deal tbh, as people will typically outright die-die on Challenging when they go down, like happened to four people in that recent boss fight above (3 grey portraits, and the last died later in the pit). Remember trying out Hard, and that was seriously difficult. It was a reload fest, which quickly got boring. Challenging felt more balanced to me. The early game wasn't such a brutal affair, where one bad roll will kill people. Well, still can ofc, but not as likely to happen. And our guys can hit without rolling 19 or something.

As for Wrath, I don't have that game, but from what I've seen of screenshots, I liked the UI and art in Kingmaker better. It looks more bland and grey-ish kinda in Wrath. I haven't seen a whole lot of videos though, because I want to try to stay away from spoilers in case I buy the game some day (still hoping for a Linux release, though I guess that is never happening :sadpanda: )

Edit: On buffing, I generally don't have a problem with it either, and am glad it is there. It felt pretty weird to not be able to pre-buff in the Pillars games. It's just that in this mode there is essentially only combat, nothing else, so there is no period in between doing other things. Then I spend two, three minutes buffing up. Combat lasts let's say 5-15 minutes depending on how hard it is, at least earlier (later it can be an hour a floor, at least for me). So I spend a disproportionate amount of time buffing up, clicking the same buttons hundred times or whatever. It's not very exciting, but at the same time it's needed to not die horribly :D Perhaps I'm overdoing it at times, but when e.g. Death Ward has been unlocked, it feels wrong to not apply it to frontliners, just in case we run into enemies that drain levels and such.

I forgot there was another level before unfair. Still, I would definitely have an issue with that Death's Door. ;) So I suppose you have to reload, or if you really mean it, find an expensive scroll, come back and resurrect the dead companions? I'm ashamed to say I never tried the resurrect spell; I must have had 2 or 3 permanent death in total I think, and I reloaded.

I'm surprised you prefer the UI in Kingmaker, but it's a matter of taste (and having stared at it for too long maybe :D). Both are very nicely done. Kingmaker feels more like a walk in the campaign, and Wrath of the Righteous like serious crusade business, and even the UI shows that, matching the story and the music. Owlcat know how to set an atmosphere.

I love the crusade, good vs evil theme of Wrath, but I admit it's on the heavy side. Kingmaker in comparison is more inviting, less ominous maybe. At least in the first half.

Ugh, I hate level drains.

It is very easy to miss items before you face mini bosses in the main campaign due to perception check fails. I found it much better if you clear the whole dungeon at one go when you are higher level towards the end game.

Oh you will love Chanter lol.

I used to love both - Kingmaker is more vibrant and has fantasy look while WotR is more clean and mature. Now I'm too used to WotR UI, Kingmaker UI look outdated lol

I reload at times too when things go to hell -- but it depends a bit on how it occurs. If it's a boss (ish) fight and we win despite some killed characters, I take it on the chin and spend gold or diamonds on Raise Dead scrolls (it 'costs' a diamond' each time). Other times I simply reload if somebody randomly dies, if they are idiots during combat, get stuck behind doors, and probably many other situations. I'm not hardcore like that.

But one of the great stories I've had in the travails in the Dungeon is when we got practically wiped out by the Fallen Priestess. Five people died, and our cleric ran for the door with a horde of people after her. Had to sell almost everything not nailed down to afford to raise the other party members. Then buffed them to high heavens and went back down and rofl-stomped the darned Priestess. That felt very good, which I'm sure is partly due to almost getting wiped out earlier, but taking it on the chin and coming back for round two. It would have been easy to just reload, but for some reason I didn't there.

Just in case you're not aware how this works without Death's Door: It's still possible for people to go down and not die, but it's really rare due to so much damage flying around. They can only have up to negative HP equal to their CON. But what typically happens is that they get hit with more attacks while going down when 'dying', and then they get chunked and turn grey, or dead-dead. Same if a bomb for example lands near their body.

There are also a few spells that can bring back party members that died in the last two rounds. The Paladin is supposed to have one like that, but it doesn't always work. Maybe if the HP is too far into the negatives, tho I'm not sure on the exact mechanics. If that is during combat, though, they usually can't even get back on their feet before getting chunked again, because they come back with only a few HP left. Resurrection would work better I suppose, but it's terribly expensive, while Raise Dead + Heal is more affordable.

Don't recall if the prices were the same in the regular campaign, but in the standalone dungeon, Raise Dead costs 6000g, Resurrection costs 12000g, and diamonds cost 5000g. Raise Dead requires one diamond, and Resurrection two diamonds. But then you need a cleric with the spells memorised, which isn't always available. Ultimately the price difference isn't very big, and the dragon (or a cleric in town in the campaign) can "read the scroll for us", as the game mechanic goes.

Don't know if there is any interest for such thoughts here, but while thinking about a new BTSL party, I ended up doing what I suppose is referred to as theorycrafting. Had that floor 57 party with money coming out their ears, so used it to create a mercenary to level up all the way.

Idea is to mainly keep the character as Vivisectionist, as it was a nice class with some spells too. Noticed that it was possible to get Improved uncanny dodge by taking Barbarian 2 + Archeologist (bard) 2. They both have Uncanny dodge, and according to the level up screen, that is supposed to upgrade the second version to Improved uncanny dodge. Unfortunately it doesn't work. Looks like a bug that went unpatched, despite that Mortheim fella saying it would get fixed a few years ago (in a thread I found).

Back to the drawing board. It was nice to get martial proficiency for "free" because I wanted to let her use a two-handed weapon like for example Greatsword. I looked at some other options, even Monk, but that becomes way too MAD (multiple ability dependency). Looked at Rogue again, and think I like that. So then:

Rogue 4 + Vivisectionist 16. Means she will lack in higher level alchemist spells, so I don't know what would be best to pick at level 6. True Seeing maybe? Usually I've gone for Heal first, but with so few uses, maybe it's a waste.

Very many feats I'd like too. Could go for a chain leading to for example Staggering Critical. But maybe Shattering defenses would be good? Don't recall if any enemies down there can be shaken, but if they can, maybe that would be useful.

So for now, I've picked up these:

Human race
18 STR (+4)
14 DEX
12 CON (maybe low?)
15 INT (+1)
10 WIS
7 CHA

Rogue 1. Dodge, Martial weapon proficiency (could probably be postponed)
Rogue 2. Skill focus (trickery), Evasion (free)
Vivi 1. Improved unarmed strike
Vivi 2. Infusion
Vivi 3. Crane style
Vivi 4. Outflank
Vivi 5. Combat reflexes
Vivi 6. Crane wing
Vivi 7. Iron will (poor save, and golems ruin us otherwise)
Vivi 8. Weapon focus (greatsword)
Vivi 9. Improved iron will
Vivi 10. Crippling strike (advanced rogue talent)
Rogue 3. Improved critical (greatsword) (suppose this could have been swapped with weapon focus)
Rogue 4. Opportunist (advanced rogue talent), Uncanny dodge (free) + Debilitating injury (free)
Vivi 11. Blind fight
Vivi 12. Greater mutagen
Vivi 13. Crane riposte
Vivi 14. Dazzling display
Vivi 15. Shatter defenses
Vivi 16. Grand mutagen

Last two rogue levels had to be taken so late to be able to select opportunist, which I hope would be good. Felt like I had to take Skill focus (trickery), since this will be the trap disabler, and the skill check is pretty rough early on. The slayer will pick up Dreadful carnage, so the thinking is that enemies will get shaken when she's able to kill somebody, and then the Vivi can take advantage of that. But like I said, not sure if this will even work at all on enemies in the low levels, when we get closer to level 20. Hopefully the AC will be good enough with all those crane style feats, because without barb or fighter levels, she can only wear light armour. However, at some point it may be better to drop that armour and rely on bracers of armour + DEX.

Won't be too often targeted hopefully with enlarge spell, but I hope Evasion + Uncanny dodge will make her more durable during combat.

What do you think?

Nice one! :) Of course, there's an opportunity to RP it, that's a good point.

I see how they die, but I'm not familiar with the resurrection methods. It must be fun, but it's a lot of work. And after a quick check, it seems there are negative levels to clean-up as well, plus all negative effects that most probably got the character to die in the first place.

I'll suggest Owlcat to create an life insurance add-on in Pathfinder. ;)

Don't think the description about getting negative levels from Raise Dead is correct, or it's not implemented. I've not seen that happening with my recently raised dead people :P They seem to take about a round before they get their abilities and such when I click on them, but no negative levels. What I do if I have both available, is Raise Dead + Heal. That usually takes them up to a reasonable hitpoint level.

I've started a new group and am trying out the character described above. Will be interesting to see how it turns out :) Let me know if anybody have comments on it, stuff to be improved or anything really. A bit crowded with 4 melees early on, but maybe it will be fine later. Paladin, Fighter, Slayer (reach), the Vivi-Rogue, Deliverer (archer) and Sorcerer.

Kept banging my head against this thing, but the Wicked Chanter refuses to show up. Think I have all the 'base' lore items now, plus two of the unique ones. But going through the dungeon time and time again, hoping the 'correct' boss shows up is pretty boring. Therefore tried the solo thing. Many, many failed attempts, the mighty mites kept smashing my head open. Perhaps I was simply lucky with this one, but started out as Vivi and actually got past those first few rooms, and then down a floor. That essentially got the character started, as he leveled up several times just by taking the stairs down. It's a very different type of game now, which is refreshing, but also pretty hard ofc.

Skills is hard because I only have the one character ofc, but not many points, so I've had to put most into Perception + Trickery. Then an odd point here and there, and lately I've put a good bunch into UMD so I can hopefully use some wands. Spell selection is quite different too, because I don't need the communal version. And feat-wise, the teamwork feats are useless. Usually Outflank is a given, but here it is pointless. Instead I've tried to focus more on defence, and have tried out the Trip line. May not work so well later, but here in the beginning it has actually been very useful. Especially now with Greater Trip. That trigger an AoO both on a successful trip, plus when the mite/whatever gets up. Don't know how much I can pick up, whether I have room for Shatter Defences for example, but should at least pick up Crane Wing from that line, and ideally Crane Riposte too. Due to the level in Archeologist, I'm proficient with longswords, so I'm thinking of using that later, when the claws may not do so much damage.

Very frustrating start, but once I got this one off the ground, it has been more fun :)

The name leaves a bit to be desired, but I kept dying within minutes, so ended up going through the character screens rather quickly, and my fingers landed on those two letters :D

https://i.imgur.com/TjRFzso.jpg

Unsure if I should pick up another Monk level for Evasion, but the intent is to pick up another Bard(archeologist) level once Vivi is at 10, so I can pick an advanced talent. Will have to live without Uncanny dodge until then, but I hope to actually get that far. Depends what the next floors have to 'offer'.

Naturally not very realistic to get superfar with just one character, but I kinda like the different gameplay. Need to be more careful, and not just wade into a room and fire off a fireball or cloudkill and then let the melees explode enemies.

It's still on Challenging difficulty, but with some buffs the AC is pretty high, so I hope it will be survivable for a while longer.

Kinda feels like I'm just writing a personal blog here, but maybe it's nice for somebody to read it. Kept going with the above solo character. There are some encounters that are buggy and/or of the total BS type. Mainly mandragora swarms (total BS) and some golems (looked like bugs). Even with Freedom of Movement on, some golems auto hit without any rolls or saves possible. The log looked very odd, and for some reason I got entangled, which ofc shouldn't be possible with FoM.

Should be said that this time I actually had a good boon for once, and +93% XP helped for those early levels, and probably all the way through up to level 20. Those annoyances above aside, it actually was a lot of fun playing as a solo character. The good gear you find can be put on that one person, and buffing up is much less of a hassle. Won't have to bother with raising dead people and re-buffing them either.

Things can of course be pretty tough with so many enemies swarming down on you, but there are also ways to mitigate it somewhat. Corridors for example. Those big giants can't swarm you then, and only 1-2 will swing simultaneously. Despite being a mostly Vivi build, it was hard to get sneak attacks. The first swing after charging in was mostly a sneak, but after that it was basically nothing.

Anyhow, my dude kept descending through the floors with no boss showing up. With yet again nothing on floor 25 and struggling to get up to floor 30 (see stuff about golems), I figured it would be a nice way to desist from using the reload button when getting wiped by the Captor and Captive. But something weird happened.

https://i.imgur.com/D3Rt2Jw.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/nTSPb20.jpg

First time too! No reloads :)

Didn't exactly have high hopes when spotting those three adamantine golems, but it should be said that I was very lucky with the timing of running back out the room (started combat by charging in). Wanted to get away from that pit, and then the Captor started spamming Caustic Eruption. One of them hit the golems, and killed one and took away most HP of the two others, standing behind the Captive that I was smashing a bastard sword with.

As you see from the second picture, it was a very close thing, had to hack through a ton of mirror images while the Captor threw fireballs or something at me, that went right through resist energy spells.

Celebrated a little, cleared the rest of the floor and went down to 31. Then went back and sold some stuff and retired the guy. A fun run and he deserved some rest after all that. No use going further since all the regular lore items have been found, so need to fight the Wicked Chanter and Weary Traveller.

19 million XP and a bunch of gold with nothing good to spend it on. A better weapon would have been nice than the plain +3 oversized bastard sword, but no luck with loot or stores.

https://i.imgur.com/wRJdae5.jpg

Think I'll try another solo dude next, since it was quite fun and different. Not sure what to go with, mind you, but should probably be something else. Apart from golems at times, nobody could really hit me except on natural 20s. Mirror image would have been useful, that's for sure. The Honest Guy did have the Robe of Death (or something like that), a robe that prevents getting critted, but the -6 constitution made me weary of using it.

Have anybody else tried solo characters, and have any advice for me?

I've never tried, sorry. I enjoy the variety of a party too much, and I don't play enough to try it.

I'm enjoying your post @Pangaea but don't have any advice for you on solo build since I never tried it. Like Redglyph, I prefer running a party.

I'm reading, since I have never played the full game through so far.

31 ??? O_O

Thanks, I'm happy to hear some of you find it interesting. I too prefer to run a party, though that is mostly for the party banter and personalities. That isn't present in this mode, just like in Varnhold's Lot. Anyway, I've tried a few more solo runs. Last was a sorcerer, which was awfully brutal, especially those first few levels. Had to reload over and over and over again until I was lucky enough with the dice to not get crit or badly hit, and kill the foes. Having your sorcerer swinging a spear at a couple of mites with no spells left and no way to rest, was… painful. Eventually he got quite powerful and got fairly deep, but a lack of buffs was an issue. Basically I had to rely a lot on expeditious retreat and, yeah, retreating :D Toss Cone of Cold in their faces and later Caustic Eruption until they finally died. The sorcerer eventually died on floor 26, to a Summer Golem. Which, for the umpteenth time, means the boss would show up on floor 30 (since he didn't on 25). That gave me little reason to keep trying against fairly hard odds, so I let him lay there dead and restarted.

I'm now running two of the previous characters from solo runs, but in a team. Only half the XP, but having two people with somewhat complementary skills made it more survivable, especially in the early game. The first floor is extremely hard as a solo character.

One of them is roughly the same as above, a Vivi 17/Archaeologist 2/Traditional Monk 1. Think feats were quite different, but it's kinda the same bloke. The other character is an Arcane Trickster 10/Sorcerer 9/Vivi 1. It needs sneak attacks to qualify for AT, and I went with Vivi instead of Rogue to get some usage out of mutagen.

Something like 6 or 7 times in a row, we have met the Captor and Captive on floor 30. No change here ofc, I think it must be the only bosses in existence :cry:

Very tough because the room also had two Wild Hunt Monarchs, which are very tough enemies in their own right, alone. It was also an electricity floor, which means enemies are resistant to electricity, and they are immune to cold to start with, so I didn't have so many tools to deal damage. One of them (think it was only one) was also immune to fire damage.

We had gotten to level 20 just before this fight, so that helped, having access to high level spells. Caustic Eruption is pretty much the only thing my sorcerer could do, apart from chip damage from Arcane Bolt, Magic Missile and Scorching Ray and such. Anyway, I'm very glad, and a little surprised, that we managed to beat them all.

https://i.imgur.com/lML7wJj.jpg

One of the Monarchs is still alive here, but we got him later. The group has descended a few more floors, think we are on 33 or 34 now. Perhaps I'll keep going with them instead of playing for another 15 hours (and 30 and 45 and 60 and…) only to face this lovely couple yet again.

I put Shatter defenses on the Vivi (who is the melee, to protect the sorcerer) quite early, and put points into Persuasion. Suddenly it dawned on me that those points were wasted unless I actually used dazzling (takes too long), or picked up dreadful carnage. Ended up taking dreadful carnage, and then later picked Frightening aspect on the sorcerer. Pretty much everything is immune, but meh… it was a nice idea, and it would probably work better in the normal campaign. When it does trigger due to lack of immunity, the Vivi can get sneak attacks due to enemies being flat-footed, so that is nice.

As an aside, I learnt in that solo run with the Sorcerer, when up against golems, that Caustic Eruption is the only spell that can hurt them. Maybe there are a few more, but nothing else I chucked at them did anything. The problem is that they have blanket immunity to spells. Even AoE from e.g. fireball did nothing. "X is immune to Y". No saves or anything. So Caustic Eruption is very important in fights like that.

This shows the issue:
https://i.imgur.com/8yRbJMv.jpg

It's funny tho. Before, I thought it was madness to play this for 19 times to get to the very final ending. Now I'm up to around that same number myself, and still lack two boss items. Will probably have to keep playing in this mode until Witcher 4 is released to stand a chance to face the last two bosses. Right now it's very difficult to think it's all random.

Yes, I also like having companions for their stories and banters but I'd say BtSL encounters are designed for having 6 party members imo ;) For those who seek for challenge can definitely go solo but I'm not that confident with character building :)

Well, hopefully not too many more to go before you face Chanter! Then finally, the real final baddie time :) I'm really curious what you will think of the real final fight ;)

Due to writing about my exploits on the Discord channel you mentioned earlier, you've probably seen it, but I've stopped playing Beneath the Stolen lands for now. Perhaps I'll pick it up again at some point and see if that boss will finally show up, but I got too bored with doing the same thing over and over with no actual progress. But I did learn a lot from all those runs. Didn't know anything about slayers or alchemists and many others, and it was fun to play with some of them.

However, now I've started a new party, an evil one. It was already hard to be rude to Oleg, so who knows if I can go through with it :D But the main is lawful evil, so we'll see. I hope things will be different here and there, but some say there isn't much of a noticeable difference.

Ofc, now the big problem is what to do with all these companions, how to build them, and who will form the backbone of the party. Spent a good hour just thinking about a name. This stuff is hard! :D

Btw, I agree that the BtSL mode is meant to be played with 6 party members, like the game itself is too. But it was eye opening to see that running a solo or two-man group was actually feasible (except the first floor, that was brutal). One of the positives, perhaps more so here where godly gear isn't raining from the sky, was that I could put the best items on that one or two characters, instead of spreading it around on six. More XP quicker also meant we stayed ahead of the curve for a while, which made combat manageable, and at times easy. The golems is a much bigger showstopper with a small group, because they are quite frankly broken (incl. with bugs, still), and you don't have a big group to sort of overpower them. But until floor 30-ish, where golems tend to show up much more frequent (four in every room is painful), I'd say it's definitely survivable with a solo character. Well, on challenging difficulty at least. I can't speak for the tougher ones, but perhaps not doable there. Enemies have pretty huge bonuses, and the first floor may have been downright impossible.

Well… now I look forward to giving the main campaign another swirl, though I also want to play out the party I had, where I think it would have been possible to see the secret ending. The group was about to head to Pitax, so still a fair bit to go. However, I do like low level campaigns, and the early chapters are the best in my opinion, so this will hopefully be fun :)

Ah yes, Pitax, I keep funny memories of that bit. That's where Linzi got transformed into a dog in my gameplay (Baleful Polymorph), with a "DR" that was too high for anyone in my party to get her back to normal. This could happen anywhere, so it's not spoiler or anything you should worry about.

It required some creativity before she could talk again :D

PS: "DR" because that's what was in the log, but I find it strange to see Damage Reduction involved there, maybe a typo for DC.

Pretty sure it should be DC lol

Soo… what creativity way we talking? Hope its not what I think it is :<

It's all in the post here :D