It's pretty hard as an Eldritch Archer countering Blur and Displacement even when relying on True Sight from other party members since that does not negate the miss chance from Blur / Displacement / Greater Invisibility.

However I just discovered that Blind Fight works for ranged attacks, despite the description being fairly clear that it is for melee attacks. I've done a bit of googling to discover whether this is meant to be or not and some sites indicate this is expected behaviour, others that it should only apply to melee attacks.

I'm currently level 14, but I would probably roll back to level 13 and grab Blind Fight instead of Arcane Pool if this is by design. With the addtional die roll on a concealment miss, 50% -> 25% (Displacement / Greater Invisibility) and 20% -> 4% (Blur), Gaze Immunity as well as avoiding all of the AC penalties from an attack by an invisible creature in melee range, it seems far too good to pass up.

Improved Blind-Fight and Greater Blind-Fight are also excellent picks for my Archer.

Improved Blind-Fight ignores 20% concealment (similar to Improved Precise shot, though Improved Blind-Fight seems better since having a second roll increases your chances to bypass 50% concealment), and it also grants the ability to negate the penalties of invisible ranged attackers up to 30 feet, though apparently you need to succesfully pinpoint them first (I'm not sure what that entails).

Greater Blind-Fight reduces the Total Concealment miss penalty from 50% to 20% (really 4% with second die roll) as well as increasing the distance for negating the penalties of invisible ranged attackers for any range.

Based on the description of Blind-Fight being for melee it makes sense that this isn't working as intended, especially as the ranged attack specific feat Improved Precise Shot seems to be similar to Improved Blind Fight in how it works. Improved Precise Shot does also negate the AC benefits of a concealed attacker (though it offers no benefit against an attacker with total concealment), although I'm not sure if this is in the video game (I think there was soft-cover in the "Closer to Tabletop" mod, maybe it applies to that?).

Thanks for your response,

Improved Precise Shot also has heavier requirements (Base Attack 11, Dexterity 19, Point-Blank Shot and Precise Shot), in fact I can't pick this even if I wanted since my Dexterity is too low (I've put most of my points into Intelligence).

I'm wondering if the video game implementation is by design since Blind-Fight shouldn't also grant Gaze immunity, and Owlcat just haven't updated the description to include ranged attacks.

It's a bit of an OP feat if it does apply to both within the context of the video game, but as an Eldritch Archer there isn't much I can do to counter concealment, as True Sight doesn't work against it and Echolocation can't be cast on others, so I need to wait to level 19 to get that. Currently if I want my main to hit concealed enemies consistently I need to rely on Tristian's level 1 Faerie fire, and it can be blocked by spell resistance.

EDIT: Silly me, looks like True Strike, a Level 1 spell I have been using for quite some time bypasses concealment! (I didn't notice until another web site pointed it out!). This works nicely with Many Shot to give me two shots nearly guaranteed to hit a concealed target (except a critical miss roll) each round.

Oof, that hurts. While the Pathfinder rules system does give you a lot of flexibility in how you distribute your secondary and tertiary ability scores, it's really unforgiving on your primary ability score and if that's even a few points too low you're going to feel it. By primary ability score, I mean the one that influences whether your main attacking action succeeds or fails. For an Eldritch Archer, your main attacking action is with your bow or with ranged spellstrike, so Dexterity is your primary ability score. By 13th level I'd really want to see around 22 on my primary.

There are a few classes that can get away with less, but typically they're more like the Bard in that they're focused more on buffing allies than on directly attacking enemies themselves.

(For the record, I actually am the game master for a pen and paper Pathfinder group, so I know the rules pretty well) It's possible; Blind Fight is generally regarded as an underpowered feat in pen and paper, so I wouldn't be surprised if they buffed it. I've definitely seen a couple pleasant buffs coming from pen and paper. Have you tried Glitterdust? It's on the Magus list so you can cast it yourself, it's similar to Faerie Fire, doesn't allow for spell resistance, and if the targets fail their save they can be temporarily blinded (the "reveal" effect works whether they save or not).

I didn't think my low Dexterity was a problem at my current level (level 14); at least in the video game it seems that I'm doing fine against most enemies, just concealment is giving me trouble. There is some pretty amazing gear for archers, like "Death From Afar" which grants an additional +4 to ranged attacks, which helps bring up my effective BAB (I have 16 Dexterity currently), and of course there are the pretty powerful +4 and +6 belts (only just got those, but I hear I can get +8).

I use Ekundayo as a reference (all points into Dexterity for him), and I still feel I'm doing ok on my hit rate, though if I gave him my best Archer gear I would probably be made aware clearly of the attack bonus short fall. I also make sure to always use Cat's Grace & Bull's Strength (extended) when exploring a new hostile area, though belts will make this redundant in time.

My Characters level 1 stats (Human):
12 Strength
15 Dexterity (+1 Ability point at level 4)
14 Constitution
18 Intelligence (+2 Ability points from Level 8 & 12)
11 Wisdom
10 Charisma

Strength:
I Actually wish I had of put that extra point from Wisdom into Strength, just to be able to have more freedom in Armour selection without needing to use a belt. Initially I was thinking I could use this as a dump stat for an archer, but I was glad that I at least put 2 points in it.

Dexterity:
I didn't think this was too bad, I planned to dump the first point into Dexterity to bring it to 16, then dump 2 points into Intelligence to take it to 20 and then decide whether to up my Dexterity to 18 or increase my Intelligence to 22. If I do increase Dexterity to 18 then I won't be able to max out Stealth which I was hoping to combine with Greater Invisibility to make me harder to spot and then use that in conjunction with Ghost Blade to strip away a good deal of their AC.

I have been having doubts that I'm leaving this too low, but after your comment, I'm really wondering if I've completely shot myself in the foot, I just haven't realized it.

Constitution:
For my first play through, I actually only got as far as the first level up and realized then that I would only get half my hitpoints at each level up, and at low levels the extra hitpoints made a huge difference so constitution suddenly became really important. In hindsight, I feel I overreacted, so while having lots of hit points is great, it isn't really something I need. I would of rather distributed those points to Strength, or perhaps moonlight as a cleric, since it is pretty neat being able to use spell recall on both Cleric and Wizard spells.

Intelligence:
More skill points, more initial spells to choose from (level 1), more spells to cast, higher DC for saves and of course a larger Arcane pool. It seemed like a good investment for my primary stat, though I'm coming round to the idea that perhaps I neglected dexterity too much.

Wisdom
The only reason it is 11 was because I hate seeing too many similar stats and I had a point left over. Should of put it on strength even if I left all other stats unchanged.

Charisma
I was tempted to put some points in here since in all other similar games pased on D&D (Neverwinter Nights 2, Baldur's Gate 2, Temple of Elemental Evil), I always neglect it. For my class selection though it seemed the right thing to do, though I wouldn't want to make this negative.

If I just left my Constitution at 10 I could of gone:
12 Strength
17 Dexterity
10 Constitution
18 Intelligence
10 Wisdom
10 Charisma

So I would be in the same position with my current Intelligence, except I would have the option to take my Dexterity up to 20 instead of 18. I actually have it as one of the staples on my Magus, but I've only used it to reveal invisible creatures, since I can't learn any invisibility detection spells until True Seeing. I was under the impression Glitterdust only worked to reveal creatures with invisibility that you couldn't see (I found it useful for those spiders in the season of the bloom chapter), but it didn't work against displacement or blur effects which I wanted.

However it turns out it that with Greater Invisibility it does negate the concealment miss chance, which is a nice suprise as I thought Greater Invisibility was just a much better version of Displacement, so even if you knew where the target was, the 50% miss chance still happened. Since True Seeing doesn't negate the concealment from Blur / Displacement / Greater Invisibility (I think it is supposed to by it's description, perhaps you might have some better insight into it as a PnP player), that was pretty much why I was frustrated with the lack of early spell abilities to deal with concealment (at least until discovering True Strike).

Looks like Displacement is a bit better than I thought, while Greater Invisibility isn't quite as all powerful as it used to be.

Also just noticed what you pointed out and that is that Glitterdust isn't subject to spell resistance...that definitely makes it better than I thought (Tristian's Faerie Fire is at a disadvantage here, despite working against concealment). It may seem silly that I'm not looking closely at these things, but I'm still learning the mechanics (which is fun!), as I advance. I think Spell resistance is one of the more recent things I learned about, while I've had Glitterdust for a lot longer than that. Same with True Strike, I didn't pay any attention to it for it's anti-concealment properties, since that wasn't an issue for me at the time when I used it, nor do I think I was even aware of the exact mechanics of concealment at the time.

Thanks once again for your post, it's great to have some insight from a PnP veteran.

I haven't gotten that far into the game yet. I still don't even have a full set of +1 equipment for my main characters, and haven't gotten any unique magical items yet. My experience so far has been that the monsters have been quite vicious so far, and I've been careful about my character build as a result.

I will say that an untyped +4 attack bonus from bracers is really strong. In pen and paper the Greater Bracers of Archery are only a +2 bonus to attack, and they're a competence bonus so they don't stack with bardic performances. I suppose we do have the Gauntlets of Dueling, but those only work for Fighters and the bonus is only +2 normally and you need to use the Warrior Spirit power to double-dip and get a +4 out of it. Odd that you have something crazy like a +4 bonus bracers, and yet you don't have +4 belts yet. Around 13th level is about where +6 belts start appearing in pen and paper games. I guess that's just the way the treasure drops are. I'd have swapped the Intelligence and Dexterity there. 18 Dexterity and 15 Intelligence is very solid for a 1st level Eldritch Archer. Yeah, if you have a spare odd point at the end of character creation, putting it into Strength is almost always the right move. There is usually no benefit to an odd stat (since bonuses only increase at even values), with the exception of strength due to carrying capacity.

Strength is actually an important secondary ability score for archers, since composite longbows apply your strength bonus to damage and this is important for your damage baseline. Most archery builds go for 14 strength at 1st level, but 12 is fine. 14 constitution is a respectable number, though given that you can reload in the video game (whereas pen and paper if you die you die) I can understand the temptation to go a 10 on a ranged character. Ah yes, that wouldn't help with those. Yes, the pen and paper rules explicitly list Blur and Displacement as examples of spells that it beats.

Blur and Displacement aren't particularly common spells in pen and paper. Probably should get more use than they do, but they're just too inconsistent compared to better defensive options and need to be stacked with other defenses (because relying on a coin flip as your primary defense is going to get you killed very quickly).

While I'm not completely confident with how different bonuses stack, it looks like there might be a bug since the Bracers of Archery that I have seem to have an untyped bonus when they should have a +2 Competence bonus as it stacks with Inspire Courage. I've attached an image which should be mostly spoiler free (Amiri is one of the first companions you meet and I blacked out the portraits).

EDIT:I forgot to point out, though the posted partial screenshot shows this, is that Death from Afar is a set of gloves so you can stack it with Bracers of Archery. Good spotting!

Unfortunately I need extra Strength to wear the current chain shirt that I have, and so I'm stuck with a +2 Belt of Physical Perfection (+2 to Strength / Dexterity / Constitution). I have +4 Belts (Dexterity & Constitution or Strength & Constitution) and even a +6 Belt to Physical strength, but alas..no +4 belts that cover both Strength and Dexterity. I'm still not convinced on going that low in Intelligence, as I appreciate the extra skill points, spells and increase to the Arcane pool the extra intelligence grants. I understand that realisitically I don't need to have more than 16 Intelligence due to the Magus spell class capping at 6, but i also like the idea that my spells will still be a bit harder to resist. It's not that I think that I'm right, I just don't have the experience and understanding of the rules to know why that might be the right call for my character. In any case there isn't much I can do about it, though once I hit level 16 I can at least decide whether it is better to put my remaining 2 points into Dexterity or Intelligence. Early on I figured I made a mistake picking Weapon Specialization when I discovered the damage didn't seem to work for critical hits. I rolled back a level, but it was a good lesson in not to neglect strength. Well I guess it helps to look at those things I can't change in a positive light. I can't change my Constitution, so I could at least justify it as cutting down on reloading times :) I think that at least with this game, learning to deal with concealment is pretty important. Those sorts of encounters seem to feel a lot more common to me, which is why I have 2 threads related to concealment in the game. It could be that my lack of ability to deal with concealment is amplifying how often I feel these encounters come up or perhaps I'm just assuming most of the encounters I'm dealing with are using it when they are not.

15 isn't "low" intelligence, and is right in the sweet spot of the ideal range for a Magus. Actually you only really need 12, as magical headbands count for this purpose. If you start with 12 intelligence, then you only need a +4 headband to get to 16 and have access to all spell levels, and 12 Intelligence will tide you until you get your headbands. I definitely wouldn't recommend this given the generous 25 build points you get in Kingmaker (standard in pen and paper is only 20 points, with 25 points being a variant "high-powered" mode) but you could do it and it would work. As an Eldritch Archer your best offensive spell options are delivered through your ranged spellstrike, so they need to hit before your opponent even gets a saving throw. Dexterity is very important for consistency in that regard. To be clear I'm not saying that Intelligence investment is bad (quite the opposite, Intelligence is definitely your second most important ability score), it's just Dexterity investment is better for an Eldritch Archer. Weapon Specialization should be multiplied on a critical hits. Only elemental damage and precision damage (sneak attacks) shouldn't be multiplied. It's also important in pen and paper, it's just that the sources of concealment are more varied. Fog, smoke, and darkness, and magical darkness (which is different from darkness), are usually the most common forms of concealment and you deal with those very differently than invisibility or displacement. There's no one-size-fits-all solution to every form of concealment.

It's lower than I like playing a Wizard type character and I do prefer the gains I get from putting points into Intelligence than I do putting them into Dexterity. It may not be optimal, but I have yet to reach the point in the game where I've regretted raising my Intelligence that high.

I do however regret not starting with a higher Dexterity. It has been nagging at me for a bit, but I guess your commentary made me give it a lot more thought. If I played the same class again, I would probably look at playing an Elf so I could get both Dexterity and Intelligence high. Starting with 12 Intelligence would be far too gamey for me, though I understand you merely were pointing it out rather than endorsing it. I'm not familiar with the number of points given as the PC game is my Pathfinder benchmark. I actually would like even more points, but I'm greedy. I miss the days of rerolling Baldur's Gate 2 stats to get ridiculous rolls, but that was probably less fair than the later games that followed. That is a very good point, though I'm looking at using True Strike once I get access to quicken to guarantee a successful hit when I need to make it count.

In any case there is nothing I can do unless I want to roll back to level 4 and dump all my points into Dexterity so I could hit 20 by the end of the game. The best I that I could do is look at putting the last two points into Dexterity to get it to 18 and perhaps waste a feat on Greater Weapon Focus for that extra +1. I could also look at putting some points into Eldritch Knight, for a higher attack bonus gain, though I lose the True Magus benefits from level 20, so I'm not that keen on that idea. I could be wrong here, as my memory is very poor. I did a whole series of tests with critical hits a while back and found that if the X3 or X2 applied to the flat damage, then the actual damage I was getting was much lower than expected (as in I was getting lower damage then I would if only the flat damage counted for the critical).

I think though that it is possible that the multiplier could of been displayed wrong and I heard that X2 damage is the highest you can get with that Magus Strike ability, which seems to make sense for the spell component of a strike (as I've seen this first hand), but I'm not sure if this applies to the arrow's damage as well.

In any case it felt like Arcane Strike was a better investment, although it does need a swift action so perhaps I'll eventually come around to the idea that I made a mistake here again. I haven't really tried to see if something like that is implemented in the game, though Owlcat seem to have done a pretty good job with a lot of the game mechanics, at least I'm impressed at how helpful and applicable learning about the PnP rules have been for my game playthrough.

One of the mods I downloaded before the official implementation of Turn Based mode was interesting in that it had something called "Soft Cover", which I thought was pretty neat feature:
https://www.nexusmods.com/pathfinderkingmaker/mods/132

I haven't used it since, as unfortunately the additional combat manuevers broke save game compatibility once I updated to the Definitive edition.

On a questioning note, how useful is Athletics?

If I decide to put those last 2 ability points into Dexterity, I'm going to lose 10 skill points, so I was wondering if I could compromise a bit:

Athletics: 10
Stealth: 20

Or would it be better to split them:

Athletics: 15
Stealth: 15

Despite Athletics being a primary stat for my class, outside of in game athletics checks, does it do anything else in game?

I've pretty much committed to maxing Knowledge (Arcana), Knowledge (World), Perception and Persuasion, though I could be open to change if you think certain skills are a waste.

Cheers!

Fair enough; as I said high intelligence is definitely a good thing. With that said, I wouldn't call a Magus a "wizard-type", as they play very differently from a Wizard or even an Eldritch Knight build. While there is a lot of overlap in terms of utility and defensive spell these classes use, their offensive spell preference is completely different. Elves are a really good race for any Intelligence-based spellcaster, since Dex is always going to be a useful secondary ability score for you and their other racial features are just great. There are some groups that do play with 30 point buy, but it's uncommon. Personally I do 20 point buy in my games, but I've backported a Pathfinder second edition rule that everyone gets an extra +2 racial bonus to whatever they want (so humans get +2 to any two ability scores of their choice, and an Elf could choose to get a +2 to strength, wisdom, charisma, or negate their Constitution penalty). Understandable given that the Intensified spell combo doesn't exist in Kingmaker. In pen and paper there is a well-known combo that makes the Shocking Grasp spell really freaking strong for a Magus (like we're talking conservatively 50 damage per casting from a 1st level spell slot) so it's the go-to 1st level spell in pen and paper. The way it should work is that your weapon damage uses whatever the normal critical multiplier of the weapon is (x3 for a longbow) but any spell damage is capped at a x2 multiplier so you'd total the damages separately and then apply a different multiplier to each total. I don't know what the swift action situation is like in Kingmaker at higher levels, but in pen and paper Arcane Strike is regarded as entirely unviable outside of Spell Cartridges builds (and even then those aren't very good at higher levels since giving up your swift is such a huge downside). Even Weapon Specialization is niche since you usually don't have room for that feat, although in Kingmaker there are fewer feats to choose from so there's less competition and it's a better selection. I haven't gotten to the later stages of the game yet, so I'm not sure how important it is for various checks. In pen and paper (which has a different skill list; Kingmaker simplified the list substantially) the equivalent skills go mostly obsolete at higher levels since Wizards can just trivialize those checks by using low-level utility spells. My experience so far with Athletics is that only one character in the party makes the check, so I've just had Amiri investing in it for everyone. She has class skill bonus and a high strength modifier so it makes a lot of sense.

I don't know how Stealth will play out in Kingmaker. My experience so far has been that stealth has been useless. You usually spot enemies before you get into their aggro range, and line of sight is tiny compared to pen and paper (If you aren't using stealth and the area is relatively clear, enemies can see you coming from literally a mile away)

Unfortunately I just discovered that with the video game you only get 1/2 a skill point for each increase in the intelligence bonus, so for every skill category you want to max out, you will need 4 points in intelligence to do so. This make it a bit less lucrative to play any other race, since Humans get that extra skill point.

It seemed like a good idea at the time (level 5), but with how damage is scaling in other ways, and with the better understanding I've gained from playing the game, there are now a lot more feats I wish to take and not enough feat slots.

I don't necessarily regret taking it, as it can be useful for easy enemy mobs where I don't bother to buff my weapons with the Magus temporary enchantments and it still adds to damage if I remember to apply the Magus temporary enchantment before battle. The Magus's Extend / Empower / Maximize / Quicken all seem to be Free actions, so I can still use them with Arcane strike.

Yeah, in game there are a few situations where only your main characters skill apply (including some secret checks that roll during a conversation that only appear if you beat them).

My main reason for investing in Stealth is to simply make it more harder for me to be spotted while under the effects of Greater Invisibility, though I'm a little unsure if monsters with feats like Improved / Greater Blind-Fight or something equivalent would probably make it a waste. Still there doesn't seem to be many other options for the skill points that would be useful to my character.

I could put points into Trickery so that I could deal with some low level traps or locked treasure chests, but I have plenty of party members that could do this much better than myself. Same goes for the Lore(Nature) or Lore(Religion) checks. Use Magical Device might be a potential candidate, but it seems pointless if you have a Divine caster in your party who could use it better....then again I don't really make use of consumables like wands.

That's weird; Intelligence bonus in pen and paper is fully retroactive.

Yup, with very few exceptions you can never get enough feats. There's always a cool option that will make your build better.

That is correct; those are free actions. Hasted Assault is the big one that's a swift; along with activating your weapon buff from arcane pool, that's the first two turns of combat where your swift is usually spoken for.

I don't know if it works differently in Kingmaker, but in pen and paper unless you're doing some really specific tactics then stealth does not function in combat. It's definitely useful to supplement invisibility at high levels, since perception checks can beat invisibility alone and stacking your stealth check on top of it is necessary to stay competitive, but in combat it doesn't really help.

Yeah, it is retroactive, it's just that you only get 1/2 a skill point per intelligence bonus gained instead of a full skill point. With the half points you get them every other level during a level up.

I'm not that keen on what I've seen of Hasted Assault, since Haste itself lasts longer and targets everyone. It also uses a precious Arcane Pool point (the same cost as recalling the haste spell itself). Hmmm...on the other hand I didn't really consider Spell Recall, which does require a swift action.

With Enduring blade (extra arcane point to activate), I can get 1 minute / level duration, so I normally activate this outside of battle when entering a new region. For larger dungeons this can be a problem as I forget to reapply the enchantment, but it's not often where I need to reactivate the enchantment in battle.

I'm pretty confused about this stealth aspect. I know that you can't enter Stealth normally while in combat, though with the ranger on their favoured terrain it is possible. However Invisibility seems to be the exception. If I cast Greater Invisibility on myself and attack a target in combat, don't they need to do a perception check to avoid being caught flat-footed and avoid the +2 Concealment bonus to attack?

Does attacking a target from Greater invisibility at range mean that the target now knows where I am regardless of my stealth level so they can reciprocate an attack, or do they need a perception check first (or something like see invisibility / echolocation / true seeing) to even target me?

In pen and paper it's considered one of the best magus arcana in the game, arguably the best. Since it only requires a swift action to activate, you're still free to use spell combat on your turn to cast something else.

The duration can be an issue, but a Magus really prefers to finish fights quickly. They excel in short battles where they can get off a burst of abilities in quick succession to overwhelm enemies.

I'm not sure how it works in Kingmaker, but in pen and paper you can use stealth in combat, provided you have cover or concealment (with some exceptions, such as the Ranger's ability to hide in plain sight when in their favored terrain). This isn't really a good combat tactic, though, since stealth ends if you ever make an attack.

There are a number of ways to negate the flat-footed condition. Barbarians and Rogues get class features that do it, and the Blind Fight feat negates it in some circumstances. Still, in ordinary conditions if you initiate combat against someone unaware of you presence you should get a "surprise round" (essentially a half-turn in which only your party can act) before initiative is rolled, otherwise if they beat your initiative they are not flat-footed. I'm not sure if Kingmaker implements the surprise rules, since they do have weird edge-cases.

In pen and paper your exact position isn't revealed when attacking, but what direction you attacked from is. If you make a melee attack then this effectively reveals your position, but a ranged attack still leaves doubt as to your true location. If an enemy can deduce (or even just guess) your position they can make an attack against it.

There is a necklace in the game that automatically metamagic extend's Haste or Slow, which helps keep it cost down for a Magus. I think this may be where it works a bit better in the video game, since often I find Haste can last 2-3 battle encounters before timing out.

Is there a longer duration between new battles in the PnP version? I could see that being a good reason to keep hasted assault as an option if the time between battles was longer.

I probably need to test this myself. From a recent battle against a Greater Water Elemental (while I was under the effects of Greater Invisibility), every one of my full-round attacks hit the Elemental as if it was Flat-footed, and I got the +2 bonus for concealment. I'm not sure if that is completely normal behaviour in the PnP.

Yeah, in the earlier post where I pasted a screenshot of my attack roll against Amiri, she was immune to being caught flat-footed, though I still got the +2 Concealment bonus against her.

Surprise rounds exist in the game (1/2 a turn as well); the turn-based mod and the official successor pretty much convinced me to get the Improved Initiative feat for all my party members. I guess that is another reason to put those last 2 points into Dexterity.

I guess I need to do some trialing to see how this works in the game. I did find that I could be spotted by Poisonous Primal Manticores (while under Greater Invisibility) at an earlier stage in the game, which may be because of their additional sense granted by PnP or it could be some other Perception mechanic that Owlcat used in it's stead for the game. I did see the Perception check roll for the Manticore when it spotted me, but the DC was much less than my Stealth figure, and varied by round (which is why I thought they might of used some "scent" bonus due to my proximity to them).

Thanks for the information and help!