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

Me too. And lets be real. Every good RPG is extremely unbalanced.

WoTR will be more unbalanced than Kingmaker and thus more fun.

 

If there is not bloated stats, I'll argue that it will be more balanced, as it will conserve the balance of the original game while keeping the high level gameplay. (though I'll say an Unfair like difficulty with all the stat alterations would still be good to have for those craving that kind of challenge)

 

Well it depends on what balance is. Kingmaker did have some broken encounters where your enemy had like 70 AC and you couldn't do jack shit. The rest was good tho.

 

Yep. But you still have kineticists which can target the enemy touch AC or complete ignore armor with deadly earth, walls and clouds. There are some enemies with near 40 SR or even complete magical immunity that are a pain in the *** to casters. And this 70 AC is thanks to the stat inflation on unfair difficulties. Doesn't matter if you prefer play as a martial class or as a arcane class. You need pun pun/min max builds to beat the game on unfair.

Yes, but with character creation, more options that are complete different from another = more unbalance. Think on a FPS. If everyone can only use AK 47, the game will gonna be perfectly balanced. IF everyone can use anything, from a Arquebus to a modern bullpup rifle, the game can't be balanced. Unless you make all rifles virtually the same with different skins(at this point, why include then?); Or in racing, more variety of cars = more unbalance.

Some people seems to only enjoy low level/low magic settings and it is fine. I enjoy everything, enjoy pathfinder by being high magical just like i enjoy Mount & Blade for being 100% no magical. But if i wanna a crazy high magical Spelljammer setting, where epic level spells are relative common, with crazy space magical ships fighting aberrations on the space, why not? Let RPG's have variety. The golden times of RPG's had a lot of variety. From steampunk magical games(Arcanum), pure sci-fi games(Fallout 1/2) to planescape settings.

I an looking forward Arcanist class and his magical exploits. Or the sorcerer with the animal companion archetype. Imagine being a all might sorcerer mounted in a tyrannosaur.

 

You couldn’t do jack shit.

Not sure what that has to do with everyone else.

Game has more than enough tools for any occasion.

 

Fallout has no necromancers or warlocks, so it's understandable.

 

Fallout is a documentary of the future sent to us by ways of time travel.

People who need classes to be balanced and equally potent in single player games hate fun. Sawyerists. Lowest of the low.

 

I like every class/archetype to have some logic to it and/or to be good at something if for no other reason than replayability.

People were saying Crusader sux and it certainly looked that way so I tried to see the logic and make it work and was pleasantly surprised while learning something about action economy while doing it. That’s good design.

Sawyerism is everything being meh.

 

We need to change the definition of sawyerism to someone who started out good, fell from grace, then redeemed themselves. It's like a heroes journey for game development

 

Has a lot of cool guns. Now only the science fiction guns, but also a lot of amazing realistic guns. New Vegas has everything that i could want, a classy .45-70 lever action rifle, a anti materiel rifle and explosive ammo, fully automatic 12 gauge shotguns with all types of ammo, including dragon breath, effectively transforming the 12 gauge shotgun into a flame thrower. IRL Dragon Breath rounds have problems "cycling", see on video bellow. But in game, you can fire non stop on fully automatic guns.

A video showing dragon breath rounds. IMO new vegas should have a "jam" mechanic for using this types of ammo on non "manual" shotguns.


But with fallout new vegas, you don't see people wanting to ruin firearms by removing all cool firearms from the game. Because the experience of fighting with a anti materiel rifle needs to be the same of fighting with a a axe.

IMO OwlCat shoud bring Gunslinger into PfWoTR https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/gunslinger/

Or just firearms and bring a alchemist archetype focused on firearms instead of bombs.

 

When he redeems himself then that will become a possibility. He's still lost in the wilderness.

 

Are you aware of the subliminal messages in some of his recent tweets? He is redeemed

 

He's yet to pass the Third Threshold; he must still make his return, vanquish his ultimate enemy and finally retire as Master of Both Worlds.

 

Can't wait.

 

I talked with one of the devs about the gunslinger class and he said that they don't implement it because it's so powerfull that it makes all other ranged weapons useless.

 

Well, a arquebus requires a very long time to reload and earlier firearms was extremely expensive. That said, more arrow types could be a good welcome. For eg, imagine putting bodkin arrow which has -2 damage penalty BUT +4 to hit(since it can easier pierce armor), a broadhead arrow which is the opposite and Knights of the Chalice style magical slaying arrows. Poison arrows could be a interesting addon That can make archers good because archers deserve some love. There are very few RPG's which did a good job with archers. Dragon's Dogma is one among then.

PS : I talk far more about sorcery on RPG's than firearms because there are almost no RPG which did a good job with firearms but i love firearms and despite not owning any one, spended a lot of money traveling to neighbor countries with more gun freedom only to visit firing ranges. I live close to the border luckily.

PS 2 : I rather not seeing Gunslinger class than seeing a nerfed gunslinger.

 

PoE RT does a good job with firearms. P:K already features a wide array of specialty arrows if you don’t believe the hype and actually play the KM piece. You can request one of your artisans to make them for you.

 

I think we should begin using the term "design framework" or similar, rather than "balance", which is often conflated with vile Sawyerism.

In the Baldur's Gate saga, the 2HP mage with one spell can be killed by a housecat in Candlekeep, but later solo dragons, liches, and extraplanar hordes. Even still, that same mage is also only ever one roll away from obliteration. The system permits extremes, but they require understanding of the games mechanics to utilize. It is actually balanced, because it has a coherent design framework, without suffering from vile Sawyerism.

When getting into issues like stat bloat on PF:KM, or bonanza crafting in ToEE, it destabilizes the design framework through inflation of abilities and resources that the mechanics were not intended to ordinarily handle. That is the distinction that some of us have been trying to make.

 

And yet the resources exist to (more than) handle any challenge within P:K mechanics, as I’ve so autistically demonstrated.

You’ve got the wrong perp.

You fall back on ordinarily, but the irony is that it can be done quite readily by autoleveled companions. The people who get into trouble are those like Porky who try to force their own preconceptions onto the design.

 

I haven't had any trouble either. I have a thorough understanding of the Pathfinder system. Kingmakers two saving graces are that PF is a sprawling bootstrapped system that can be readily taken advantage of, and that Owlcat also lavishes the player with "stat-stick" items.

Its one reason why melee is more enjoyable in PF:KM, contrary to most CRPG experiences. Melee can overcome bloat with bloat, but spellcasters far less so. I'm not saying that the experience should be gently and perfectly curated, but the D20 dice system requires a certain amount of consistency to remain coherent.

Consider this:

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

Vordakai, an ancient lich from a superior age with an unholy relic gifted from a deity. Even after slogging through his large dungeon without resting once, my party defeated him in 2, maybe 3 rounds?

Compare that to any Lich or mundane mage in the BG saga. D&D 3.0 focused on thresholds for defensive spells and damage reduction. 10/adamantine DR with stoneskin vs negating one physical attack per lvl in AD&D. A PC having +15 STR won't change that outcome much in 2E, but will roll through a mage in 3E. Its why Mirror Image is still fantastic, because it didn't change much. Scale matters a great deal in D20 systems.

 

I mean give Vord some Plague Storms, Wails, and pre-buffs and things could go differently.

That's just the unrealized potential of the AI, not the system itself. That said, unless you're really on top of your game things can go poorly for you with Vord on Unfair even as is. ​

And spellcasters have their own means to overcome the supposed bloat too.


As with everything else, it's about teamwork. Here it's Harrim giving the boss -2 Saves via Archon's Aura then making him reroll all Saves with Touch of Chaos.

 

But spell casters have a lot of powerful tools to deal with inflated enemy stats. You can't just rely on a single spell to end the encounter. You need to be smart. For eg, instead of just casting finger of death or sirroco, put enemies under the effect of a cloudkill while they are distracted by weaker summons. If you can maintain the enemy 5 rounds inside a cloudkill, you can lower his CON up to 20 points(unlikely but expect a 10 pt reduction is fine) and thus, making his hit points and FORT saves far smaller. Summoned soul eaters can damage enemy WIS, few soul eaters can mean that a tough cleric will no longer be a problem. And so on.

Spells can also buff your non casters. Legendary proportions on a min maxed warrior is a huge buff.

Your spells are still viable on unfair. They just much more situational and requiring combos and strategy to work.

 

How would you guys build a damage based kinetic knight asking for a friend.

 

Can't really go wrong with an energy based element, don't forget to pick up weapon focus: kinetic blast. Watch out when you respec though, there's a bug where when you respec you can't unequip your kinetic weapon.