People saying that casters are weak comes from a couple of very specific sources: the -4 shooting into combat penalty and not understanding how tanking works. For example, take a sorcerer as your main character, and don't take Point-Blank Shot and Precise Shot. Now try to use that character to do damage. It just doesn't work, and the game is almost completely opaque as to why. Next, if you don't have a strong grasp of how tanking works in the game - for example, using Valerie with her tower shield fighting defensively - the enemies will run right past your tanks and kill your casters with impunity while they fire ineffective spells. The game exacerbates this problem in a couple of ways. First, it gives you default characters that take relatively deep knowledge of the system to make them effective in their default roles (Valerie, Harrim). Second, it does a very poor job of explaining why things aren't working. Without the logs, most people would have no idea ... and the logs aren't highlighted in the tutorial. How are people supposed to know that ranged-touch and ray-based sorcerers need high Dexterity and two feats in order to be minimally functional? The game plays up Sorcerers as straight combat spellcasters, but without the right specific builds they are helpless. And that's why people think casters are weak.

I think the video shows pretty well what people are actually complaining about: How weak damaging spells are. And think they have a point. You are completly right casters overall are super strong and all of those buffs/debuffs are key in winning the fight. But once you look at the actual damage potential of those casters it gets sad very fast. Look at the inflict critical wounds for example. 4d8+level. So what was your level 8? 12-40? That means he deals on average less damage than your amari with a single hit and that is the highest spell he can cast for you atm. Every spell that is even worth considering deals damage to your own guys too so you got to do alot of micro management. I just feel like it isnt worth to pick any damage spells and considering what you picked for this video you kinda agreed. Go for heal/utility and use martial classes to deal damage. Plus as you said those characters arent optimized and optimized fighter types deal more damage with each hit while casters just can cast more often with the same damage (some tiny exceptions like favorite spell thingy). So I would even say that casters get worse the better your characters get. I am at level 13 now and I pretty much just use one divine caster to keep my guys alive and 1 arcane to buff them (the magus orc guy) aswell as the bard as like a semi caster for buffs. I even created one of those mercenarys to test out the damage potential and picked everything that made his spells damage better but he just felt wasted. Better to use another martial class. That is the reason why some people arent happy. They imagined a caster as a destruction machine not as a buff machine.

This is a very important video for anybody having trouble with PKM to watch if they do not already understand the truth of the message contianed in it. There is a reason for the old D&D adage: go for the guy in the dress first. That reason is if you don't he will ruin youy day PDQ. But the single most important lesson from this video, which is entirely correct IMHO, is that you do not need to min-max charcters or use only mercs or find the "best weapons" in the game to succeed. You just need to understand the mathematics of magic in D&D games and the power of teamwork. What the hell does it matter if your fighter is doing 12-26 dmg per hit instead of 14-30 if her target is rolling round the floor laughing, fleeing for their lives or simply stunned?

i can't imagine having an adventuring party without an arcane and a divine caster.

I really like your pathfinder videos, thanks for letting me go from playing on easy to challenging :)

Only issue I have with magic, is all of my favorite spells are largely missing. And these spells are not even obscure. They are very iconic spells.

Haste has been op since Baldurs Gate 1. :P One of my favorite things in the old Infinity Engine games was to overlap Web and Entangle and then unleash Fireballs, Prismatic Sprays and Horrid Wilting on crowds caught inside. You can do the same in Kingmaker.

the pen and paper Guides, especially treantmonks one, really changed my idea of the arcane casters. they are not here to destroy the enemy. the fighter does that all day much better. they are here to provide all the things that other classes cannot. fly, protect, buff, entangle, grease, enlarge, AOE, Debuff, enchant, illusion.

I think that your points are spot on about casters not being weak. Their buffs/debuffs/support spells are awesomely powerful, once you really start to think about it. I think that the problem is that casters "feel" weak the way they are presented in this game. When I first made a character, the first thing I made was a sorcerer and I expected to be shooting fireballs and blowing stuff up. However, if I want to actually be effective in my party as a sorcerer in this game, what I do more than anything is cast buffs on my party members, and then sit back and pretty much do nothing for most fights. Because of the rest system, if I don't want to waste time resting all the time, the most efficient thing to do is buff my party and watch my martial classes mop everything up because that is how you get the most bang for your buck out of your resources. Honestly, I think the core of the problem is that this is a PnP adaptation, instead of a system created specifically for video games. For example, as a sorcerer in a game like Divinity 2 or Pillars of Eternity 2, you can feel awesome as a magic caster because you can use all of your powerful spells every fight, and feel like you've made a visceral impact every fight. In pathfinder you get the "oh I am so cool, I blew them all up with a fireball" feeling 1/10 fights, maybe. Or if you are like me, you just never use it because you are holding it for the next big fight that might be around the corner. This problem is further compounded by the fact the game specifically has game mechanics that punish you for resting often because so many of the story elements and other systems like the barony system are linked to time passing in game. As a result, the most optimal way to play the game becomes to eschew using anything other than buffs with long durations because that is what allows you to move from fight to fight quickly without spending resources. As a result, casters tend to "feel weak" in this game because most of the time in combat, they aren't doing anything other than plinking away with a crossbow or something. Additionally, in this game, they don't have as much utility outside of combat as they do in PnP, further compounding the problem. Using your own example, haste does 40-60 damage every turn with the extra attack alone, at the minimum, and has a whole bunch of additional utility, including defense and accuracy so why would you ever cast fireball instead? They are in the same spell level, and yet one is just vastly superior in almost every way. But the problem is, haste isn't exciting or sexy. "I made all of my teammates better in incremental ways, that, in aggregate, made the fight trivial" is not nearly as cool as "I MELTED ALL THOSE SUCKERS WITH A FIREBALL!!!" or what have you, you know? The latter would probably grow tiresome in a team based PnP experience, but in my single player video game, why the hell not be able to just blow shit to smithereens with my big stupid fireballs, you know? As a result, when I play this game as a magic user, instead of feeling like a big powerful wizard, I pretty much feel like an accountant, or a quarterback that just hands the ball off to a star running back all game and never gets to do much on his own. That's Just my two cents as to why "the community" is reacting the way that it is about it. Thanks for the video!

Simulacrum, Time Stop, Chain Contingency, Pierce magic, Lower Resistance, Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting. Baldur's gate 2, the good old time. Made me feel like Momonga in Overlord preparing the fight against Shalltear.

Casters can buff your real damage dealers which are martial classes, that single damage spell you can do per turn gets saving throwed against majority of enemies compared to the 5 high dmg attacks your martial classes do per turn. Debuffs are a joke, your feated and specialized spells with their DC 20 just never hit against enemies they're meant to be used on, the tough enemies (with their +20 save mods) not some random bush bandits or goblins. Only reason to use a caster is to get buffs like Haste and debuffs that have no save against them like Enervate. If it has saving throw against it then it's pretty much a waste of spell slot.

Octavia. Arcane trickster. Scorching ray sneak attack. Hits like a truck

It would be nice to see your review of spells (esp. from early lev) that are rly strong.

Heroism is a GREAT spell. I always try to get it on at least 2 characters. Not sure if you mentioned it at the end, BUT don't forget ability BUFFS can help out in other ways. I have come across more than one vid showing the dangers of disease and poison in this game. Many baddies lower your stats this way, and buffs can both aid in prevention (increase in your Armor class as well as saving throws) as well as keeping what could be a crippling debuff to a stat from getting out of hand. I had a different run where my wizard Octavia's strength was so debuffed, she was like at 2 or 3. Had to unequip some of her items as well as switch her stat bonus from Dex to Strength just to get her back into a "decent" strength range. I think the devs have made sure many of the spells have some use in game, whereas there are a ton of spells NO ONE takes in Neverwinter Nights 2. They are known to be just plain bad.

First! Love the guide (Keep em comming!) Also can you talk about the "Duellist" prestige class. I've literally not seen ANYONE talk about it :S

People think casters are WEAK? I could never beat this game without my transmutation and enchantment spells. Displacement, Haste, Slow, Delay Poison, Protection from Energy, attribute boosters, Alchemist bombs, the list goes on and on. Never ever underestimate a heightened Hold Person or Hideous Laughter. A single Hideous Laughter spell rendered the troll king encounter completely trivial for me (Challenging mode). Also shoutouts to the hilarious combo of Stinking Cloud and Delay Poison Communal. Edit: Your videos are very good at illustrating how to approach this game through the Pathfinder ruleset. Neglecting entire schools of magic just because they don't deal direct damage (something I did in Baldurs Gate 2 a lot) is really detrimental. I've yet to fail an encounter if I get to buff up with all my defensive spells beforehand (barring an insanely unlucky crit that oneshots one of my tanks).

web+grease + acid splash/magic missile/boneshatter => job well done

Teamwork, as mentioned here, is really the key. You can really make your encounters much easier if you take this by heart without doing any fancy micromange stuff. Haste & Slow are 3rd level spells, which really helps you frontliners to dish out damage and having to recieve less damage in return and thus are quite helpful in any encounter - one of my most favourite spells since BG 1 ;) If you up against spiders, poisonous Hydras those long term communal spells offering you resistances or making your party outright immune to the effects are just fantastic. So Delay poison communal makes your whole party immune to poison for one hour, usually enough to clear a dungeon level. Same goes for those comunal resistance spell which let you decide what you party should be resistant to for one hour reducing any damage by that source by a flat percentage before making any saves. It really makes those will-o-whips lightning bolts or goblin alchemists but a triffle.

Out of curiosity, does point blank shot and precise shot affect to hit with spells or just the weapon they use?

23:54 *long pause, sighs* alright let's talk about fireball...

First let me say that I agree with you. However, I remember coming from playing a Warlock in WoW to playing my first party-based rpg. Shout out to DA:O. The idea of OP for me was a totally self sufficient PC. The idea of weak was a carry who needed others to do the damage and take the beating. It's a shift of philosophy that most aren't going to take to right away.

A twohander fighter at lvl 20 with scythes is going to do more damage. At level 20 they get guaranteed crit and increased multiplier so that 4x goes to 5 times. Power attack is increased by strength by 100%. Say you do 50 damage a hit they goes to 400 damage to all nearby enemies with great cleave. They are stupidly overpowered, but only if you get to lvl 20.

I would never expect the heir to D&D, origin of the "quadratic wizards, linear warriors" trope, to have _underpowered_ casters.

Your Pathfinder video was really good! When's the next video coming out

Please consider doing a guide on the Kingdom building element of the game -love your details -ty!

I've made a sylvan sorcerer with a pet leopard (upgrades early at lv4) and its fantastic. Basically a free tank that will rez during a rest if it dies. And by the time it becomes weak you have high level spells anyway

Lets face it, when people think about powerful magic in D&D style game they think about BG2. No game since replicated the feeling of walking into a room, casting time stop and killing all non-boss enemies during it and if BG3 is using 5E it won't either.

Whats Your opinion on Magus/ sword saint or Arcane Tricktster?

Harrim's touch of chaos is pretty good too.

Isnt the consensus that caster are incredibly strong and the martial classes are almost garbage in comparison? I'm surprised that somebody would even consider them to be weak.

thanks for all the tips. heleped a lot. and very objective, too. right to the point

I remember casters being really OP, especially Arcane ones, in these kind of games. Was a Wizard in all of NWN playthroughs and Icewind dale; so i tried to avoid using one as long as possible. finally settled on just getting a caster for CC instead of raw firepower and in my second playthrough im gonna avoid having any arcane users; fully martial force!

Papa darkfire is alive??? I missed you bro

Quite true. I find it is better for Arcane casters to do crowd control rather than single-target damage, but it depends. Of course, once you run out of spells, you are extremely weak in comparison, but then again you can give them a few levels of another compatible class to make them solid even when out of spells or use archetypes that often do that. Nuance: casters lose access to high level spells if they multi-class, so not always a good idea (trick is to browse the highest spells you can ever get and see if you feel they can be sacrificed for a nifty multi-class).

Thank you for these videos.

Thank you for the insights

Do spells share usage? I used Grease and it took away a charge/use for my Laughter as well

Have you played Tyranny? I'm thinking I'm gonna restart.

My problem is I have 3 casters with optimized builds for specific spell types... and they constantly have enemies make saves, it's absolutely infuriating how many spell slots I waste on a daily basis on spells that fail because the enemies save.

If I have a limited number of spells per day, what do I do if there is one more encounter and I don't have any spells left? How can I recharge them?

3 casters is a must I think. Ideally a good mix..a buffer/summoner ideal. I have an Eldritch rogue n sorc plus cleric as standard. Blur/displace always before big fights.

My main is a sorcerer and very powerful. Of course, I have played Pathfinder for years and understand how to properly use and level them. I have a good round of spells, direct damage, defense, and even some summoning spells for emergencies. Linzi is great at using haste and bardic performance. Octavia I use for enlarge person and magic missile, also gave her a summoning spell. So my casters are my primary force, and Amiri and Valerie are front line to keep enemies from getting to them.

Which is the difficulty in this gameplay?

2/3s casters seem to be the sweet spot in this game, excelling through most of the game.

Who the fuck ever said casters are weak? Empowered maximized fireball would disagree with any arguments they might have. You just need to optimize for it a bit. Draconic sorcerer with evocation spell focus and lesser maximize metamagic rod (is 14.000 gp, can be found at vendors at random) at 6th level can nuke a 20ft rds aoe for: 6d6 (maximized) + 6 (from draconic bloodline. 1 dmg per die rolled) = 42 flat damage. THAT'S AT 6TH LEVEL... Now, imagine you're at 15th level get 2 metamagic feats: Intensified+empowered. Get Maximize metamagic rod (normal one). A 15th level sorcerer can nuke an entire encounter with Empowered Maximized Intensified fireball for: (15d6 (maximized) + 15) x 1.5 (90 + 15) x 1.5 = 157 damage in a 20 ft rds. Now, you do use a 6th level spell slot... BUT COME THE FUCK ON. 150+ damage in a 20ft rds...

Crowd control spells are op, strength/AC buffs are op, de-buffs are op, haste is op. So it has been, so it will always be.

I remember when Haste wasn't area effect, and used to age the recipient 1 year.

Why thank you!

Can you recommend a video that gives a guide on making a dex based Magus character? I feel pathfinder makes it very hard to make a decent dex based magus (or any dex based melee), but I also feel I don't understand the game mechanics and I'm missing something. Any advice?

Great vid! :D

Those large AOE CC spells certainly do appear very powerful, but arent you as likely to disable your allies as your enemies. It seems like it would be difficult to use such large spells without essentially rolling the dice to see if you allies or your enemies get hurt more.

I know this is a bit old at this point, but I have to say. I think the issue is a lot of ppl playing this are coming from mmorpgs or arpgs and not from actual table top. In most of the other pc rpgs you're focusing so much on damage that other stats and affects don't matter much, it's just how much damage per second you can put out. When you're playing table top, you walk in to a dark room, and 5-10 enemies come out from your flanks, it becomes immediately apparent how good dropping 3 of them in a magical pit, or fearing a few away can be. Also, when you're actually rolling the dice to save from being poisoned or feared, you'd be amazed how much you want that +2 to saving throws lmao.

I'm in the last dungeon as of now and there you'r party is kinda torn away from you and you need to find your friends. I have found Almost all of them and now i don't have a bard in party and this is heartbroken time for me. Linzi powered up so much my band of missfits so i thinking about generating a new bard. Maybe it will save me from constant Gaze paralyze. Seriously, i want to cry for how i miss my little bard :(

Arcane casters are good even at 1st level. Ever tried grease? You just throw that on the enemies and theyll be face hugging the ground for half the fight

So why is a bard better than a dedicated caster? Wouldn't you be better off with just an extra cleric or control wizard or something in the party?

Summoning is the other thing that gets nuts fast. When you can put another character on the field that’s half as good as your fighters… then another, then another…

It is odd how I came over your kingmaker videos by searching for them instead of in my sub feed when I subbed to you years ago. I assumed you stopped making videos a long time ago when I got nothing in my sub feed.

playing on ps4, these vids help a lot

Arcane Casters are Weak is the problem there at Best Glass Cannons. Glass Cannons are Weak, They just happen to fucken blow shit up at the same time. Edit : Give a Bonus Example for Pathfinder KM, The Enemies in this game all have inflated Spell REsistance / Saving throws and such, So unless we are talking about Easy Diff or such, Your spellcaster is just more often then not be able to over-come saves / penertration and not effect ppl via offencily Buffs R the way to go

It's probably because people have never played the Tabletop game, I personally do play a lot of tabletop and I tend to create Utility characters rather than Damage and I can easily say that I tend to solve most boss battles and difficult encounters by having a trick up my sleeve to either boost the party, debuff the enemy or change the environment, everyone knows my characters are practically worthless in the regular encounters but that they will save everybody's skin as soon as a difficult encounter starts. And though this computer doesn't grant me the power that I would have at the actual table since I can't get creative with my illusions and whatnot, the Casters are still pretty strong, so I always make sure to bring at least 3 casters with me.

This is D&D. Casters are weak on low levels and powerful on high levels. Nothing new.

Spell casters can be built to do loads of damage, be support. Or just be a wizard with so many spells you can do everything. In my game I'm running 2 melee, 2 mages (1 sorc dps 1 arcane trickster support/dps), 1 bard and 1 Mystic Theurge (support/healer). Though I have to admit at the start of the game casters do seem weak, they don't do great damage and the only thing going for them is their supportive spells and aoe. Though once you start to unlock the heavy hitting spells at level 6 they really start to shine.

Really the problem with this game is that if you aren't already a very experienced crpg or pathfinder player there is literally no way to know which spells are good, which aren't and which school to pick for what. I read that some schools don't even have lvl9 spells which you can't even know unless you get to that level in the game and find out. Maybe in a few months or years when all the holes are filled in the experience will be better than it is currently.

Casters are great, but they buffed encounter DC rolls rather than properly increasing encounter difficulty which severely weakens casters and forces super specialization (GSF++) to just stand a small chance.

Basically in this game blaster sorcerer took a huge hit they don’t get magical lineage or spell perfection

Please make a sorceror guide

I like my wizard to be built around killing a lot of squish cannon fodder mobs. With big aoe spells. With some CC spells for bigger tougher targets. Having my rogue more for anti big. Bard and clerics are great for buffing the shit out of your party. All that +hit and +damage from bard. With clerics being great at buffing defense. All caster are great at debuffing enemies. Fighter more of a front line meat shield. Honestly people are just looking at the end numbers. Where a rogue can instant kill someone. Not the way the game is supposed to be played as.

My main character is an Alchemist. It's really fun bombs for days.

Your dwarf is very tall and shaven

i always used my magic casters as buffers. for magic damage, i go to kineticists....

Are these things still relevant for EE version?

Havent tested anything than the arcane trickster or magus since the caster rolls buff, But on hard and above hitting anythimg with cc is nigh impossible. I dont know what difficulty you are playing on but afaik using any cc on higher difficulty is a wasted turn.

Caster hate in Pathfinder ia a littlw baffling to me. It's even crazier in the pen and paper version where yoy have access to utility spells that can swquence break a linear story line.

honestly i just use them for Buffs. Haste and slow are just to useful to not have

In other news, sun tends to be yellow.

Cool to see you producing more content. I hope you're doing alright dude.

Man if people think casters are weak that is nuts. Low level casters sure, but mid to late game they become pretty insane.

Wait people complain that Linzy is weak? My dude.... She is a bard, which makes her automatically one of the best characters in the game. It doesn't matter that she isn't minmaxed, the only reason to not bring her along in every party is if you are playing a bard yourself. Currently I'm at level 10 in the game (I've played TT but this is my first run with the CRPG), so with inspire competence, one of her earliest abilities she is giving a +3 to attack rolls, a +3 to damage rolls, and a +3 to saving throws. That is the equivalent of having a +3 weapon and a +3 cloak of resistance, that stacks with your magic weapons and cloaks of resistance.... She can haste, she can slow, she can buff ability scores, she can completely shut down multiple enemy's turn. The only thing she doesn't do well is stand in the frontlines. She wasn't minmaxed when you get her and I didn't min-max her afterwards (I focused on making her passable in the damage department, she's never going to compete with a well or even halfway decently built fighter (although she deals more dpr than Valerie, who I stuck with out of pure laziness but finally replaced before starting the current quest-line with a merc.) but that's because I think it's fun to have a little halfling running around shooting people with a crossbow, not because I think it's the optimal way to build a bard), but even with me NOT building her as the "best bard" she's still the MVP of the party, with only my merc wizard giving her a run for her money. That's including my MC (which is how you actually build a sword and board tank *cough cough* Valerie) and my merc fighter (which is how you actually build a two handed damage dealer *cough cough* Amiri)

It's because of the low amount of spellslots, not being able to change the spells when leveling. Sure Harim can buff the party but he is useless for the rest of the day. In a game where there is more then one or two encounters per day the spellcasters wont be able to keep up.

Well no shit. Casters have *always* started out weak and ended up being the most powerful characters you can possibly have.

Casters are not weak, I'm currently attempting a "solo run" where my Main character is the only character, And the main trope of this character is the fact that he's abusing the scroll savant archetype and multiclassing with Paladin. The fact that I can Solo run this game on the premise that I'm essentially a caster of any class due to scrolls is the only reason I've made it about halfway into the second act.

I don't understand how people think Linzi is weak. Bardic Inspiration+multiple slots for Grease and Summon Creature is a perfect setup for a god-wizard. Between her and Tristain's infinite buffs, you have a friggin *busted* core. Throw in anyone who gets Web and give Linzi some.of the animal totem buff spells and encounters feel mean spirited on normal difficulty.

Regarding your curse spell,, if you cast it on fighter might as well drain his mental stats, since that is their "weak" department, and once the stat reaches 0 we all know what happens ^^

A video on how well built the pre-fab characters are could be interesting. A few of them (Octavia especially, but also Linzi and Reg) are built on a pretty solid foundation, and a few more are imperfect but usable (Harrim, because all clerics are superb), and in ways that are fairly straightforward -- but it'd be nice to have some tips on maximizing the characters who are neither obviously good nor obviously bad.

casters are great for: haste which is one of the better buffs in the game, no matter the level. cleric buffs and protections. protection from energy, communal.. and delay poison, communal make your entire party immune to poison damage for a time and protection from energy gives you a shield that blocks a certain amount of energy damage per level. lesser restoration also cures any ability point damage you might get during adventuring. arcane trickster can bring both magic and sneak attack. a 0 level cantrip called acid splash can still do around 10-15 damage and kill the branded trolls that are immune to fire without having to use alchemist flasks. mages can, of course, bring fireball which is great for AoE and they can copy spells into their spell book for memorizing later. and these are just the basics.. you can do so much with casters in pathfinder its crazy. as for linzi.. i dont really use her as a damage dealer.. she's a great buff character and i think her CC is underrated, particularly when you are going after the stag lord. later on, she's more for buffs and CC is less effective.. but remember that there are many CC spells that still do something even if the enemy saves.

Caster: I used my two spells. Non-Caster: I attack every round. Checkmate.

5:20 - Not sure what the discussion surrounding Valerie is about, but she is 100% the strongest story companion and one of the few that is outright better than a player-built merc. Her stat total is very high (even if you consider the odd-numbered ones to be 1 point lower, she has around 30 points in stats, and that's before accounting for her quest bonuses) and those stats are well distributed. You also get her at lvl 1, and even though her first level is kinda wasted, it's still a max BAB class with a ton of free feats and there are no downsides to it (like useless domains). The reason you might find her underwhelming is because you kept giving her fighter levels. She should be a bard (+RDD, ofc), maybe a scion. Anyway, only divine casters are bad. Res/restore is dirt cheap, but priests are still useful because of the party wide poison immunity, which should be cast 24/7 so you can walk around in stinking cloud. Honestly, that and a couple of immunities/protections for specific opponents are the only good thing about priests. Arcane casters already have the most important buffs, and don't get me started on damage/cc spells. Arcane casters are completely broken. With a few exceptions, any build for any role you can think of can be improved by replacing some/most/all of the levels with an arcane casting class: -Melee DPS? - Rogues, rangers and barbs are completely inferior to a vivisectionist or a sword saint. -Tank? - You can't get enough AC with full plate + shield on higher difficulties, you need dodge stacking. Monks can do that, but they don't have concealment and mirror image. So, it's bard, scion or sorc with a monk/paladin dip. -Support caster? - As explained before, priests are trash, use alchemists instead. -Ranged DPS? - Bows are garbage compared to ray attacks and spells, so arcane trickster or pure sorc will always out-DPS any fighter, ranger or whatever rogue mix you can think of, and they can also protect themselves. -CC? - Well, kineticists are overpowered, but sylvan/arcane sorc is just as good. So is a grenadier, at least early in the game. Divine casters don't work because they have the same important CC spells as arcane casters, but their DC is lower. -Skill monkey - Sure, you could make a rogue, but then you are stuck with a rogue in your party, which sucks. Wizards and alchemists will be able to max all the skills you need and leave the lore checks to your bard. tl;dr - divine casters ARE weak, arcane caster are OP.

25:39 No! Don't fudge the numbers. Average roll on 7d6 is 24,5. Assuming reflex saves that is 12,25. Versus four targets that's 49 damage, not 60. 26:42 "Mopped up most of the enemy party" That's another rash statement. If you assume the enemy makes their reflex saves as in the previous example you hit each enemy for 12+ damage. That's only "mopping up" if the enemies already were very seriously wounded. In that circumstance I'd take 50 damage focused on a single enemy instead practically every time.

Because of your videos i am considering buying the game. Thank you mate.

People just want to do direct damage with casters. They do not understand the concept of teamwork or buff and debuff in this type of game. They are more used to do direct damage only games like shooters etc etc. This is simply not how pathfinder kingmaker works. So people, put the gun down and stir the brain a bit more, damage is not everything and does not have to be direct....I really hope your amazing video will shed some light on the topic for everyone!! Thanks again!!

Druid + mammoth pet + buffs =oneshot killers with huge hp and defence better than any tank and dps dealers altogether

Honestly, I've been playing casters from the start I've played Pathfinder Kingmaker and honestly, the class itself even seems a little bit OP in this game to me. :)

The reason why people think this is because casters do feel weak in terms of their damage output and this is due to most of the mobs/bosses having resistance to the various types of damage. Add to that their squishiess and newb players naturally assume they are weak compared to the melee classes. This is the wrong way to look at it ofc. The caster classes are very powerful when looked at through the lens of the utility they have to offer the party. They make many situations a lot easier and without them, a lot of situatuations are impossible to get past on the harder difficulties. As an example, when facing a swarm mob that not only do damage but have an AOE ability that places the confused condition on everyone within a certain range and where each mob can only attack one player meaning thy hit several of your players, the caster classes are super strong as they can sleep/debuff which allows you to get past the encounter. When I see people in the comment section saying that casters should be super damage powerful and should be nuking mobs within 2 spells, it reminds me of how I used to be, where I am now and how much of a newb I was back then haha. This balance between the casters and melee classes is what makes it such a fun game sa you really have to use your head and think out your strategy/spell choice. Each class brings it's own benefits and cons to the party. A huge part to this game is both understanding the spells/abilities and how they synergize with each other in different situations along with positioning and the build. New players eventually learn and understand all this if they put the effort in but this is a complex game and it takes some time to learn. All this said, when playing on the harder difficulties, the tank/melee classes are easier to play early game and are a lot easier to get past the odd occasion where you are put on your own.

there is the impossible Hargulka fight that turns easy with a caster spec-ed into hideous laughter; if you don't have that you are forced to give up or lower difficulty all the way to story mode

The amount of fights in the game and the Limit to resting because of quest timers all around make them useless nontheless. They are emptied so damn quickly.

You dont get sound burst " Right out of the gate" I'm REALLLLYYYYY struggling to make harrim this amazing cleric you keep talking about here. I barely made it to 2nd level with this group. The combat in this game is mind numbingly sluggish. I'm playing it on NORMAL, lol.

My main problem with casters in this game has always been how the strongest debuff/cc spells also affect your frontline. Let's say you use Harrim's Fear in this video and try to hit those 4 Bandits coming at you from the point where he's standing, aren't you going to hit your 3 fighters too? Ofcourse this can be mitigated by positioning Harrim differently, but this has 2 downsides: micromanagement (which some people don't mind), and it puts him in harm's way, and although Harrim (with his strange build) might be pretty tanky for a caster, he is nowhere near as tanky as any of your frontliners, which becomes a problem once you reach the later chapters. The only mass crowd control spells I use are things like Web, Grease and stuff like that, and when it comes to damaging spells, Controlled Fire Ball/Controlled Molten Orb or their uncontrolled counterparts once I finally have access to things like Firebrand. Granted, I never played D&D or Pathfinder before Kingmaker, so a lot of possibilities are definitely lost on me, but for players like me without previous experience, casters are relegated to Buff-/Summonbots, Swarmkillers and the occasional, highly situational AoE CC or Nuke. Which still makes them extremely powerful, it just doesn't play into the traditional pc gaming fantasy of casters raining hellfire upon your enemies. Octavia with her Ray Sneak Attacks and Reggie are a whole different story ofcourse, I started using them on my second playthrough and was surprised how much burst damage they can dish out when properly built.

The people who complain want to solve all encounters by spamming fireball.

Casters are fine, I would never run without. That said, the campaign at times, can be really punishing when it comes to time management. For a second or third playthrough, that doesn't matter much, because you kind of know what to expect. But if you have to do challenging missions with no option to rest up, I can see where they come from.

From tabletop getting the 1st fireball cast was always great, lvl 1-4 was pain, later editions made it not so crappy at start but yet, lvl 1 mage is a bitch as it should, lvl 5 wouldnt feel the same if not. And Sorcerer is tricky, would be worth some explaining since they cant copy scrolls like mages, so if you dont think ahead you can make your character suck (or at least be not that awesome) later.