The frustrations of spells vs. effects in Pathfinder: Kingmaker

One real frustration I have with Pathfinder: Kingmaker is when descriptions and effects don't really match.

Many, many debuffs have very specific counters. You can get stats drained, paralyzed, petrified, frightened, stunned, level drained, blinded, sickened, exhausted . . . all good. But then how do you fix it? It depends. You have spells like Lesser Restoration, Restoration, Greater Restoration, Remove Curse, Inspiring Recovery, Heal . . . which one fixes what? It's not always clear.

It's not always clear what effects are countered by what countermeasure. I've had plenty of my companions made to flee by a fae's Frightful Moan . . . despite being accompanied by a Paladin who cast a spell to render them immune to fear effects. Cast Delay Poison, Communal to be immune to spider's venom . . . but not the stat-drain poison of other monsters or the save-or-die poison effect from a Prismatic Spray.

Countermeasures seem very idiosyncratic, specific, and arbitrary. From a person versed in the game Pathfinder only from the video game, it's tough. I often struggle to figure out what exactly would help me counter foes who spam Slay Living or Prismatic Spray. I have to dig, dig, and dig in the rules to figure out what does what.

It's really annoying. Mostly I deal with my issues with Mass Heal, rest, and lots of healing spells. But even several playthroughs through the game, and late in the game, I just have a vague idea of how to deal with certain issues. It's not really ideal.

When it comes to magic, I really like when effect-based counters just work based on the effect. If you are immune to fire, fire damage should just fail. Poison immunity? Then "save vs. poison or die" should just be something that garners a chuckle from you. And so on. It's useful food for thought as I continually revise my version of GURPS Magic for Felltower . . . I want it to seem clear why something works or does not work; strange exceptions should be rare and should allow for an "ah-hah!" moment as you figure out why. I'm not getting it from this game, but it is making me think about how not to do things the way Pathfinder seems to do them.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker video game silliness

I spent a little time yesterday and today goofing off with Pathfinder: Kingmaker, with my LG Paladin (Holgar Carlson, of course.)

It's a fun game, but it has a few really amusing things that come along with being a video game.


- One NPC gives you a quest to help track down some poachers. You see, he needs evidence that someone is poaching . . . and proof to give to the guards. So you know, I, the BARON, go find the proof for him to give to the guards. Okay, I'm Lawful Good, so it vaguely makes sense . . . although I'm empowered as Baron to pass judgment without "the guards" helping. It was even funnier when Molly, my LE Monk, was my PC. Why would a Lawful Evil Baron not just exercise her right to believe this guy and execute the criminal if I wanted to?

- We stumbled across a few bandits while travelling. I wanted to try using a Fireball scroll with a character who needed a skill check to use it. We stood in plain sight of them, a short distance away, as she read the scroll over and over until finally it worked. We somehow achieved surprise and got a surprise round on them.

No, I'm not kidding.

- there are all sorts of cool magic items with cool powers. I have to look them up in an online guide, because in-game I can't find out what they do. So I Alt-Tab to my browser and look them up. It's just annoying. And it means you can't just stay fully immersed in the game.

- We fought a really nasty group of organized foes, and one of my characters got mauled. We needed to rest up before the final fight. So I left, rested, did a side quest, and then came back . . . and the organized foes ignored the fact that someone had massacred their gate guards and half their garrison and just waited for us to come back days later to finish them off.

They clearly hadn't read How to Defend Your Lair.


Still fun. But video games aren't TTRPGs.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker random notes

I'm still playing my LG playthrough of Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

How's it going?

- I cranked up the difficulty of the monsters a bit. I didn't increase the damage they do.

- Owlbears are pretty horrific foes. I've seen them knock down a 100 HP PC with a high AC in one turn. As in, straight from "fine" to "dead." And that's against a heavily buffed and maximally equipped PC.

- My favorite weirdness? I can show up tired to my capital, select "Support the (whichever advisor)'s Endeavors" and spend 14 days on that . . . and finish the task exactly the same amount of tired. Not more tired, not rested. Hah.

- Blindness spells are permanent. So if you fail to resist one, you need to have a cleric ready to cast a Remove Blindness. If you don't, you have to clear spells, rest, then go out in the wilderness and cast, and hope it works, and so on. I honestly checked off the rules option to make the game easier by removing such things on rest. It's cheap, in a way, but it's an annoying way to spend time memorizing spells and casting them over a few days of game time because some random bandit cast Blindness and my guy rolled a 1.

- Speaking of 1s, they come in runs. My hasted archer attacked 4x last fight and needed a 2 to hit on each one. He rolled four 1s. Okay. So that's like 1 in 16,000, right? It's happened multiple times. Also, critical hits do more damage but critical misses don't seem to do anything.

- Leveling up is cool, but man, it takes a lot of time to go through everyone's level up process, then pick spells to memorize, then rest so they can get those spells . . . I've leveled up and then said, screw this, I'll do it tomorrow and stopped playing for the day.

- I had an aritsan come to me and ask for 3 books. I had them all, because I always keep all books. I mean, I had them in my backpack. He asks for them, and leaves, and then I need to travel 22 hours to where he lives to bring them to him. Have to love scripted processes.

Still fun, especially now that I'm around level 8 so I don't spent so much time sucking against high-AC foes. Good time killer.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker again

I'm not sure why . . . but I got sucked back into Pathfinder: Kingmaker yesterday. I had a little time, decided to see where I was with my last LG Paladin save game . . . and spent a few hours playing through it.

Even with the repeated playthroughs (this is #3, if you count my LE Monk who's on the last stage but not complete as a full playthrough), the game is still fun. I'm not masochistic enough to play it as a chaotic character, choose bad advisors and inflict random harm, mostly because that gives so many sub-optimal results. But it's interesting to go for the "best" ending with regards to one of the big NPC interactions in the game.

I need a little distraction from other work . . . and this fit the bill. I'd be at Vice City except I needed something I could pause a lot while doing other things, or I'd be going all Vercetti during my spare time.

Pathfinder bundle

Pathfinder 2e has a big Humble Bundle:

Click here if you're interested - it's $28 for a 25-book bundle, or $5 for a much smaller bundle of just the basics.

Friday Random Links & Notes 2/17/2023

The usual random bits.

- James Mal's Top 10 non-D&D games. GURPS isn't one of them, but he's written a GURPS Traveller book and Traveller is #1, so maybe that explains that.

Part I
Part II

I like a lot of those on that list. I especially agree on Gangbusters!, which is really only hampered by being class-and-level. It's really hard to deal with having to give reporters levels and such things. It would have been better entirely skill focused but in general TSR didn't do without classes and levels back in those days.

- Doug asked me a question about my Q&D grappling rules that provoked a "huh, I hadn't thought of that." Now I have to think of that. And figure out what to do or not do about that. Damn questions!

- Orc minis! I like my orcs green, but I like these orcs.

- I always liked the catoblepas. I used one, once, to great amusement. So I like this tactics article for them.

- In Pathfinder notes, I'm still Team Evil, specifically and aggressively Lawful Evil. So imagine my surprise when being Lawful and Evil caused me to have a conflict with a LE potential ally, who rejected me as weak and unfit as a ruler. This is the Lixia / Hellknights quest line, for people who've played. Very annoying. I went out of my way to try to nuture this alliance but apparantly if you choose anything but the exact right answer at the right time for the right conversations, you are just 1 calorie, not evil enough. Aggravating.

I killed them off for this, of course. What did they think, annoying the evil Queen Molly? I kill people just for the XP, even when they don't annoy me. I'm to blame for my actions but seriously, they could have thought this through.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker update

I've played a bit of Pathfinder: Kingmaker with my evil guy, Baroness (soon to be Queen) Molly.

I'm 13th level now, mostly monk (I think Rogue 4, Monk 9) going bare-handed. It's not a bad build, although the damage isn't quite what it would be with a good weapon.

Playing Team Evil has been enjoyable. I've managed to get an evil bad guy to be my advisor (we're using each other), annoy my neighbors, and get some powers I'd missed by playing neutral-to-good.

On the other hand, being evil has its costs. I ruthlessly executed someone who could have been useful. Lost out on a craftsman by being evil to him when he showed up being annoying. And I wasn't sufficiently evil enough with one of my companions to push him to the "bad" ending for his character. Oh well.

I hit a bit of a snag at the moment - a mission to do that will take a lot of time, and I just don't love my mix of potential companions. I really enjoy two of them as personalities - Jaethal and Harrim. But I find them vastly inferior as actual companions. Jaethal the undead Inquisitor is a second-rate fighter and second-rate ranged fighter, and tends to get mauled. So she's around for Perception checks and Arcane rolls. Sadly, Linzi the happy and annoying Bard is better for that. Harrim is just not a good cleric for some reason, and if you make him a Mystic Theurge he's not much better.

I literally make every part myself, Ekun (ranged and survival), Nok Nok (stealth, trickery, and general murderous mayhem), and then I need a buff character, and a healer, and a skill monkey, and need one of them to be any required PCs. Oh well.

Still, Team Evil has been enjoyable overall and a useful distraction when I need a little time away from non-gaming endeavors.

Video Game Magic Item Plentitude

The treaure expectations in video games vs. tabletop games has been on my mind as I re-play Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

From the very start of the game, I expect to find a steady stream of magical items. They'll increase in value, scaled to my current level. I won't find a +5 sword until I'm pretty high level. You're never going to be better armed than your level, even without level-restricted items (like in Diablo, or Borderlands 2.)

On top of that, I expect to find enough items that every possible magic item slot is filled. Have two ring slots? Everyone should end up with two magical rings. Everyone has a magical cloak. Everyone has magical headgear, a necklace, a suit of armor, a pair of magic boots, and magical gloves. Everyone will have 1-2 magical weapons and if they use a shield, a magic shield. Churn of items is not necessarily high, but it continues along, and spares are ruthlessly sold so I can buy better items (or consumables, if your game needs them.) I have no idea what my characters are like at their base stats, because they all have stat boosters. They have so many layered item bonuses I need to actually swap items to figure out which one is better. I have to look things up online to figure out how they interplay because I have so many.

Sure, we ended up with a of magic items during my Unearthed Arcana-era high school AD&D game. But not that many. You'd get that one guy with three rings trying to explain how he could wear them all, but lots of guys with no magic rings. Everyone would have a magic weapon because you need them to fight some foes. But you wouldn't always have one of everything you could use.

Games ramp up the magic items because they're fun to find and use, for one. They also have no consequences outside of the game. You can't really figure out some way to use extra magic weapons to decorate your palace guard with +1 swords and spare Belts of Giant Strength or Rings of Protection. You're just limited.

But I routinely have more magic items on one character than you'd see on a party of 3-4 in all but a semi-legendary Monty Haul style game.

It's just interesting to me.

Kingmaker: Sometimes Being Evil Has Benefits

Evil sometimes comes with shortcuts.

Confronted by angry peasants who want blood because they're not happy with how quickly you're dealing wiht an outbreak of monsters?

Hang every other one of them!

Problem solved in a lot less skill checks and carefully chosen words than my Lawful Good guy needed, for sure.

Will this have consequences? Consequences, shmonsequences. I'll be higher level by the time that happens! Bring it!

Fiddly puzzles

I was playing a little bit of Pathfinder: Kingmaker earlier, and I hit a snag in one area - a puzzle I can't solve. I mean, I know the solution, but I didn't have the magical effect needed to solve the puzzle. I was able to figure out what it was but not do anything about it.

I just said out loud, sarcastically annoyed, "Yeah, I'm sure people sit around and say, I sure wish games had more fiddly puzzles that depend on having the right spell memorized."

I do my flat-out best to avoid those kinds of puzzles. I don't really mind actual puzzles. I don't enjoy them in video games, where I tend to enjoy accomplishment more than the tasks needed to accomplish the goal. Quite the opposite of tabletop, where I enjoy the path and the solution even if I seem rushed to find the solution.

That probably seems a bit of a contradiction given the puzzles I've used in Felltower. I don't really see it that way, though. I've had some puzzles that require the players to figure out what to do, and then do it. I don't assure them they can do the thing. But I don't require a certain spell, or skill roll, or whatever, to solve a puzzle. I don't really plan on a specific solution. I do admit some of my puzzles have and will frustrate the living hell out of my players. So much so they spent character points to find out the solution to one, and then still couldn't solve it. Although I maintain it's not a puzzle.*

Whenever I get annoyed in a video game, I take a mental note of what I dislike.

- am I stuck because I can't make a certain roll? Not fun.

- am I stuck because I can't figure something out? Not fun, but not automatically bad.

- am I stuck because I don't have some item that I was supposed to keep or get? Bad, even if sometimes the getting can be fun.

I try to avoid all three of those in my face to face game, with the "key" exception to the last one. Sometimes, you do need a key. But you won't need to make a particular roll, or have a specific spell handy, or otherwise need to jump through hoops in some special way in chargen in order to win the day. It might be a player facing problem, it might be character facing, it might be both, but it won't be "guess the right spell" or "roll the right skill roll." I don't find those to have entertainment value that outweights the frustation.



* Although, as Joe Walsh says, it's hard to leave when you can't find the door. Sometimes you can find the door but step two isn't really leaping out to the players.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker update

I spent a little of yesterday and all of my gaming-directed free time today on Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

I'm still playing my Lawful Evil Monk. I use retraining to respec, though. I found a nice build that uses Rogue and Scaled Fist Monk to make a good bare-handed fighter. This one is doing much better than the fragile and low-damage previous character. At least now with Sneak Attack and Disorienting Attack I often put the enemy in a bad way. I still need more AC.

My playthrough approach on LE is this:

- choose the Lawful Evil option unless choosing something else is far better.
- otherwise go lawful before chaotic and neutral before good.
- choose the Evil option unless the Neutral option seems closer LE (it happens.)
- avoid the usual "Just attack!" Chaotic Evil action.
- pick fun stuff my good or neutral guys wouldn't.

So I've done stuff like double-tax a petitioner and piss off my neighbors, butcher a diplomat who insulted me when I caught him out in the field fighting a random encounter, and destroy both sides in a conflict. Fun stuff. I expect there to be hell to pay for a lot of this, but the advantage of being LE is that hell is kind of your thing.

I still do "good" things that clearly come with XP, though. And I've sided with good people over evil people who annoy me because annoying me is dangerous and should be.

I'm trying to avoid short-circuiting adventurers like I did last time by being too direct. Thanks to a prior playthrough and better understanding of my options, I'm finding monsters that stomped me hard the first time - wisps, wolves, and alchemists - are not so hard now. I know better how to prioritize wiping them out.

Fun stuff. I can't wait to take more of the evil options I turned down last year.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker II

I decided after all to play Pathfinder: Kingmaker again, after being reminded of it when I did my year in review.

- I went Team Evil for this one. Lawful Evil, because being Lawful is more useful when being a leader. It's been fun to choose the evil path. I rarely do, and this game doesn't stomp on you for being evil. You pay for it, but you get a lot more options. I won't get to experience what's possibly the best ending - I'd need to play a Good-aligned character and make a lot of specific choices. That's interesting but I started neutral and ended up good last time, so it's just too close to what I did before. So it's Team Evil this time!

- I've been trying an unarmed monk. It mostly sucks. Not entirely . . . but hit chances aren't great and damage has been low. I'm not certain how to get around this. I ended up finding a pair of flaming nunchaku - seems dangerous, but here we are anyway - and trying those. Not much better. I'm level 5 now, and mostly my main character inflicts a little damage here and there and gets stomped flat. Not enough HP, not enough AC, and not enough offense. I'm not sure it is going to get better. I may have to respec to something else - maybe make a pure caster (a wizard or sorcerer) because I already did a fighter last time. Seems odd to do but I'm not replaying a bunch of hours to get around the weirdness of an allowed in-game respec.

- It's still amusing how difficult some encounters can be . . . but I've had much less trouble with wolves this time. I'm not sure if I played with the settings or something, or there was a patch, or I'm just a combo of luckier and better. I have a better approach to dealing with wolves this time, actually, and I put off encounters where I knew I'd fight them until I was a few levels up. That helped a lot.

Good game, worth the second playthrough. I should finish off the Stag Lord later today, or tomorrow if not, and then see if I lose momentum as it comes to the kingdom management. Maybe not - I enjoyed that a lot, last time.

CRPG Humble Bundle - Baldurs Gate

There is a CRPG Humble Bundle which might be of interest:

Badlur's Gate & Beyond

For $1 you can get Icewind Dale (complete AFAIK) and the enhanced edition of Planescape: Torment.
For $10 you can get those plus all of the Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights.
For $20 you can get all that plus Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous.

I'm still deciding, here. I've played out Icewind Dale, and I'm not sure I'll want to do it again. I would like to try the enchanced version of Planescape. Those for $1 is fine.

Another $9 nets me the Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights games. I'd like to try BGII. Or maybe try BG again . . . which I disliked back in the day but maybe it's better or my tastes have changed.

I really want the Pathfinder game, but the enhanced version is $20 right now. I'm not sure "Enhanced" is worth +$10 but I'm leery of buying a plain version when there is a better version out there. And while $1 is throwaway, and $10 is a really good deal per game, $20 is actual money.

I'll break down and get one of these deals, and we'll see which one.

Is it worth waiting on the Enhanced Edition of Pathfinder: Path of the Righteous? Or should I just go for it?

Pathfinder: Kingmaker - won!

I finished Pathfinder: Kingmaker today.

I was right, yesterday. I was cleaning up minions before a big boss fight. The boss fight was good, although like most fights at this stage, I had no idea what was going on much of the time. Way too many spells, rolls, and effects going on at the same time. Most of the time I just didn't know what people were up to, or what spell affected who and why, or how to remove it.

I did find that Dispel Magic is stupid, though - the bag guys put an effect on my main guy, so my cleric tossed Dispel Magic on him, and it knocked off one of his friendly buffs instead and my guy was still incapacitated by the hostile effect. Seriously?

Still, good fight.

Trying to avoid too many spoilers here, though.

I was disappointed with the very end of the game. I won the last battle, made some decisions . . . and then got a storybook flip through of what happened. But none of it was really interesting. Blah blah this person good at job, this person bad, this country did some thing and apparantly my decisions affected that, blah blah. I didn't really care much. I just flipped through. I'm not sure why but I didn't feel invested in it at all.

I was also disappointed that I didn't get to keep playing at all. I had a couple of unfinished side quests and I'd have liked to have finished them. I even got some XP in the final battle - rather a lot - but it didn't really matter. I'd never get to realize the benefits, so it was meaningless. My character had a romance with one of his companions, but all we got was a "they lived the best life EVER!" thing . . . a conversation with the actual character would have had some meaning.

And then it dumped me to the main screen. That was that. It was disappointing. Why hand me loot and XP and all of that when it doesn't matter even a little bit? It just wasted time from my actual life and did nothing else. Hurrah, 61K XP for something, a few more K of gold, a +5 weapon . . . I don't get to do a thing with any of it.

I enjoyed the game right up until then.



I do plan to play again - maybe as a Lawful Evil monk. I like fighters more than casters in any case, and it might be fun to use some of the weird monk stuff I found. I think if I play very evil I might just get a worse ending or the same one. So I may need to take one of my earlier saves with my good guy, make some different choices, and then see if I can get an improved ending. We'll see. That's for later, much later.

Good game overall. Long, though, very long.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Progress!

I spent a couple hours yesterday and about the same today (albeit broken into chunks) on Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

I'm basically trying to finish the game, and having a big multi-part battle with what has to be the end boss.

- I had a chance to stock up a bit, and probably should have done even more stocking up. But I bought a few Heal scrolls and a bunch of Heal, Mass scrolls. These have helped a ton. I should have, honestly, bought 30 or 40 of each and just spammed them out during fights. It's a great spell.

- Most of the fights I'm having are pretty nasty brawls, with lots of foes with multiple attacks that teleport in reinforcements. I'm enjoying them . . . and I enjoyed the ones before that where I had a horrid curse on me that cause me to roll 1s 40% of the time and foes to roll 20s 40% of the time. Why? Because I feel like I roll 1s 20-30% of the time already - it's rare for my 6-shot archer to hit with all six shots in one round even though it says he hits on a 2+ on a d20. So it didn't feel like such a debuff.

- I'm 19th level, and if I can't get to 20th somewhere in this fight I simply won't get there at all.

- I think I may have made an in-game choice that cut off the best possible ending, in that I don't understand why I wasn't able to get an NPC to do something that should be totally obvious to do and should be desired by that NPC specifically. I'll read spoiler-filled walkthroughs after and see what I missed. I used a few already to make sure I didn't waste hours of time (and thank goodness I did - some stuff I needed took a lot of trying even with guides and maps.)

Overall, still a lot of fun. I'm glad I got it and I'm glad to play it.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker

I'm still trying to finish Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

- This late in the game, finding some coins and salable gems feels silly. Not inappropriate to the location, but silly. I have 1.7 million gold on me - like in Wizardry, it's weightless - but here are 23 more coins. Hurrah!

- My current annoyance is dealing with one location with multiple states - depending on how and where I entered. It's hard for me to keep track of, even with paper notes.

- Gaze attacks are annoying. We all know that. Couple that with the usual "I don't know the rock-paper-scissors of counter spells" and I'm spending much of my time with 1/2 of my party paralyzed or fleeing in terror or confused or something. It's too late in the game for me to figure it out, it feels like. I really need to go find a place to rest, replenish my spells, put "Freedom of Movement" on everyone, and move on.

All of this is slowing me down. It'll be fine, but it's still making it slow. It also saps my attention faster than other styles of play, so I play for maybe 20-30 minutes and then stop, even when I have more like 90-120 minutes to play. I just can't sustain the attention with so much else going on (work, continuing education, Felltower, dwelling projects, etc.) on top of it. I play one fight and then I'm basically done for a while.

I still enjoy the game, and I want to find out what happens, but I don't feel at the moment like I'm accomplishing much. So I am trying to take one bite of the apple at a time, then set it down for later.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker . . . geez, long ending

So I'm still doing the ending for Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

I got sidetracked by some silly quest which - hopefully - nets me allies I could use in the endgame. I've fought a few genuinely tough battles, but I spent like crazy on Restoration scrolls so I could fix even the results of nasty battles. One left most of my party dead and most of them also permanently drained of stats. Six Greater Restoration scrolls later and I was fine. I probably should have purchased a few more . . . I've got nearly 2,000,000 at this point so it's not like I'm going to run out of cash.

But it's just a slog. I'm not sure what's next . . . but I have yet to actual penetrate the main foe's main lair. I figure that'll be a slog, too. Given only 30-40 minutes of gaming time at a clip, this will take a while.

Still fun . . . but geez, long.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker - endgame?

I played a bit of Pathfinder: Kingmaker. I think I'm nearing the end of the game.

- I've suddenly gotten some very powerful weapons from some of my craftspeople. Not everything - one guy keeps talking about a special weapon but hasn't delivered it, and another about some heavy armor and hasn't brought it. But it's been a noticeable increase.

- I maxed out my kingdom stats and my towns . . . all save one stat, which seems to get the chance to rank up very infrequently (Espionage, FWIW.)

- Events seem to be getting repetitive. I've solved the same problem months in a row, it feels like, and none of them really advance any plot.

- I only have one main quest left active, and one side quest. That side quest is looking like a "completionist" quest after I win the game.

So I'm kind of frittering away some time, waiting for a wave of bad stuff to come that I can solve and win the game.

It's still fun, but it's starting to feel like I've checked off all of the boxes and certain improvements, developments, and tasks have no real relevance to the game. Yet I still occasionally get jumped by bandits or masses of elementals.

When I eventually play it again, I think being Lawful is too damn useful . . . but I'll definitely go evil and see how that works out. Why not? Maybe I'll run a caster, although it's a simpler game as a fighter-type.

King(maker) for a day

I ended up with a day without gaming yesterday. I spent it on non-gaming things, but also took a couple hours to play some Pathfinder Kingmaker, too.

- Like wargs and knockdown, little is less fun than Permanent effects. At 17th-18th level, nothing seems more common than fights ending with Permanant level drain and stat drains and Baleful Polymorph. Fixing them takes a cleric with Restoration (Lesser doesn't do it, and seems largely worthless overall) or Remove Curse. The latter doesn't always work, so I usually save scum until it does, because I can't memorize only Restoration and Remove Curse and cast them until they work. It's just not fun to use the former six times every fight and the latter 4-5 times before it works. It's just not fun. Don't get me started on effects like Insanity or Confusion which don't seem to be fixed by Dispel Magic, Remove Curse, Heal, or spells specifically noted to remove emotional effects. I just don't get the the rock-paper-scissors relationship of spells to effects and I've been playing for dozens of hours per week for dozens of weeks.

- Longsword is a terrible, terrible choice for your main guy. I passed up a lot of magic weapons to use:

a longsword +1
a longsword +2
a longsword +2, flaming
a longsword +2, speed necrotic

and that's it.

Considering that I passed up numerous high-powered maces, polearms, bastard swords, greatswords, two-handed axes, and spears . . . I am pretty disappointed that I chose the longsword. Almost anything else would have been a better choice. I'm 18th level, out of max 20, and I'm still hoping I get a good unique weapon. Everyone else in my party has two (2) unique weapons equipped and I'm using a longsword +2, speed necrotic that I bought from a vendor. Come on, man!

- Fights at 18th level are so confusing that I never have a real idea of what's happening. Spells are cast, saves made (or failed), damage done . . . and I just cycle through my guys. Sometimes they go, sometimes they can't.

- I'd still play it again, but clearly you need to know what will happen in the end to make better choices in the beginning. I don't love that. I replayed Planescape: Torment twice more - a total of three plays through - and each was better. But I still felt like I did well the first two times. This playthrough I feel like I either chose a good path through luck or made a bad choice. That's not a great feeling.

Weapon Specialization & Magic Items

Weapon specialization really reduces the fun and value of discovered magic items.

Take my guy in Pathfinder: Kingmaker. He's a longsword and shield guy. I can't use many of the weapons we find at all. I don't use most others because even a powerful mace, axe, bastard sword, or spear isn't going to be good enough to make up for all of the feats and focuses I've put in the longsword. So I use a magical longsword I purchased from a vendor. It replaces the magical one I found very early in the game.

This happens in my GURPS game, too. Magic shortsword with cool powers? Sorry, no one uses a shortsword or is willing to absorb a -2 to skill to default it from Broadsword. Sell it. Magic spear? Backup weapon, or sell it. Weapons either exactly match your specialization or they aren't worth keeping.

One real joy of fantasy games - and post-apocalypse games - is finding some special weapon and getting to try it out. Instead, you end up not using them and regarding them simply as trade or sale goods. The more powerful the weapon, the more likely you sell it - it's worth too much to keep it.

I don't have an easy solution for this . . . I just have been meaning to write a little on this for a while.