Pathfinder Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Owlcat's next Pathfinder RPG - now in ALPHA

Also when they say "much shorter", I'm still assuming they mean 40-60 hours per playthrough.

Even if they cut loads of stuff they've still got 6 books worth of content to get in.

 

Unless they've changed things you'll hit level 20 and have the mythic path abilities. WOTR is the munchkin paradise AP.

 

Without the extra dungeon DLC, I think thing slowed down a bit aroudn level 14 or so, around Varnhold I think, so they have room to wiggle on progression.

 

Yep; Pathfinder 1e is very different than D&D 5e. Most modules for 5e rarely get anywere near lv 20. With Descend to Arvenus being a lv 1 to 13 module. And people say that after lv 10, you are in Arvenus(not sure) which sorry for low level players but there are no way to survive on Arvenus unless you are past lv 10. Most pathfinder book collection in other hands seems to go from low level to high level.

 

Yeah 5e generally finishes at pretty low/mid levels but pretty much every Pathfinder AP apart from WOTR (that goes to 20) and Council of Thieves (that goes to 15) ends at level 17.

 

Might as well make all the characters fighters then. Fuck low level is boring as fuck. I am glad that Kingmaker is very fast early and you get to level 7/8 fairly quickly.

I think in some interview Avellone said that they initially planned PfK to be 80 hours afair that went too long into 100+ hours. They are trying to keep each playthrough of WoR to be at that 80 hours benchmark IIRC.

Need to find the link, but I am pretty sure I read that.

 

How mythic is different than epic?

 

There's only a single type of player who likes high level D&D/Pathfinder - those who like to be overpowered and breeze through the content by spamming the extraordinarily badly designed high level spells. Curiously enough, they are also only fans of arcane spellcasters.

RE: Mythic vs epic - I think you get your first mythic abilities at lvl 4? Don't quote me on the specifics, but it's a system separate from and parallel to the usual levels. Epic levels are 20+ which don't exist in D&D 5E, I think also Pathfinder.

 

I understand wanting a low level campaign in table top because the numbers eventually can get over whelming and there can be a lot to deal with, but video games are a perfect opportunity to experience the higher levels. You have a computer keeping track of everything for you, you don't have to wait for someone else to take forever in their turn, managing a bunch of buffs, etc. I don't know why someone would throw away the opportunity to experience the more complex parts when they're given a medium that can make it more manageable and allow you to focus on the system instead of wasting time adding up a bunch of modifiers. Also sometimes you want to fight dragons.

 

In 3.x you can easily defeat a balor at level 10 (not a demon lord, but still...) even using just core rules. If you use more or less obscure splatbooks, by level 12 you can easily take down all the demon and devil lords in Fiendish Codex 1 and 2 at once.

I think you are a bit too obsessed with levels and their meaning: D&D 3.x is so broken at its core that they don't really mean that much. The optimization of your characters is a far more relevant indicator of what challenges you can overcome.

 

In the original AP, Mythic is separate to your class. You start getting the Mythic abilities quite low level.

You picked a path like Guardian or Archmage and you got abilities both passive and active that you could use to complement your class.

Owlcat have gone in a slightly less generic direction, but I would assume the implementation will be similar.

 

It's not the levels they are obsessed with, it's the high level arcane spells which trivialize the entire game.

 

You are ignoring that enemies CAN USE high level spells and spell like abilities. And that in many games, they use Sodalis on nwn1 - hotu stops the time, casts deadly traps and so on.

Not liking this things are ok, but you already have 2 games where this abilities can't be obtained. While fans of high level gameplay has only ONE game.

I already played a lot of low level games, Dark Sun Shattered lands was fun but become boring after the third run due the lack of interesting spells. ToEE is IMO much better without the level cap but i defeated ToEE with the lv cap first.

Yep; But you are building mid level pun pun builds to take out high level mobs. There are no way to with role play builds, you can do the same...

 

That is the issue with high level play. Generally low/mid level play is more interesting.

It is fun to occasionally have a crazy munchkin game like WOTR though.

 

Wrong, try face Spawn of rovagug with 6 arcane casters on kingmaker. Then try the same with 6 kineticists or 4 barbarians, a druid and a cleric to cast buffs on the 4 barbarians and see the difference...

 

Yes, but not in the same quantity and variety as a PC mage. There isn't a single monster/NPC which has access to the entire spell list and can spam them one after the other to combo you to death. Unlike the PCs.

 

People are saying that on WotR, enemy mages are casting spells like Greater teleport, so the solution is to buff enemy spell list and AI. Not to make every game a low level game. And on nwn1 the AI is dumb. Like some undead clerics casting heal on themselves.

 

The solution is removing the 7-9th level spell circles, like already discussed, and staggering the 1 to 6 progression. Nobody is getting "nerfed" because a nerf is only compared to other characters, which now also don't have access to them. Maybe only special cases like bosses.

 

Plenty of enemies have mythic levels, all sorts of built in immunities, and high saves. If you try to Sirocco your way through WOTR, my guess is you get curbstomped.

AI also seems a lot smarter than in Kingmaker.

 

No, that would kill the fun of being a high level magician. Everyone will play as kineticists on pathfinder or warlocks on 3.5e if you does that.

Ice prison, mass + Sirroco + deadly earth is the most broken combo being able to be cast by 2 party members IMO. If enemies are smarter, it can make this combo less powerful

 

Don't worry, by the time I'm done everyone will have an equal playing field.

 

It's not just about numbers, it's also about believable and interesting stories and how your character can fit in them due to his abilities. Take Baldur's Gate: you begin your adventure investigating some strange market speculation, then you discover your heritage and during Baldur's Gate 2 you experience some crazy (but still fascinating) adventures. Then you reach true high-level gameplay in Throne of Bhaal and at that point you no longer care about what's happening around you because it's a clusterfuck of "fight this super powerful enemy and, after you defeat him, go fight another even more powerful enemy!". Guess what are you going to do after defeating that second super powerful enemy? Yeah.

When you surpass the threshold where your character gains world-altering powers, nothing makes sense anymore. There are no true realistic challenges you can face without inevitably breaking your immersion, because the game needs to arbitrarily limit your characters' abilities or find ways to ignore them (and those ways rarely are clever). What's the point of a dungeon with walls and rooms when you could just destroy everything in the blink of an eye and immediately reach whatever you are looking for? Because you definitely have the powers to do that, but the game needs to ignore them to be playable.

 

Not necessarily. You don't need crazy exploitative builds like pun-pun to be able to shred high level monsters like paper. You just need to optimize your character and pick the best options each level has to offer and, around level 12, you have so many spells/powers that interact in so many broken ways that you can defeat almost anything.

 

Having access to the 6th spell circle is definitely enough to defeat almost everything a campaign can throw at you. Including dragons, demons, elementals and so on. And those you can't aren't meant to be defeated in the first place, like gods/demon lords like Mephistopheles.

 

Yep; but most people consider BG2 the best baldur's gate game. BG1 = low level. BG2 = mid level with slightly high level on end chapters. ToB = Epic level.

And having a epic character in mid of the "real" world is not a good thing for a RP standpoint. Epic characters should be dealing with non mundane things. like for eg, dealing with a war between Marids and Efreets, invading the 8th circle of hell to kill mephistopheles or something crazy high fantasy like that. ToB also had way less time and resource to fully develop the story. IF was up to me, throne of baal would happen in the hell and every baalspawn would have to make harsh deals and do harsh things to overthrow another. That would fit more a epic level adventure.

Spelljammer could also work in a high level/epic level campaign.

Try to kill spawn of rovagug with tier 6 spells only.

You are planing to reduce sorcerers into Magus without all melee cool stuff and it will kill the class. I prefer not having sorcerer in the game than having it nerfed to be weakling magus. Seriously. Just ask for the complete removar of pure arcane casters. Is less awful.