Pathfinder Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Pre-DLC Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[AwesomeButton]

I've taken to playing it on Normal now.

I switched to normal with my ill-fated wizard when I reached Lost Chapel at lvl 7. Soon after, I restarted with the cavalier.

 

[Reinhardt]

They nerfed blackwater quite hard now you just spam electricity rods and its over

I'd nerf any hp bloats if any, but I don't understand why people lost their mind of regen+immunity to element of it. It's an obvious gimmick, which is no different from enemy being invisible while also having protection from divination.

Have you tried it in tb? Running for 10 rounds from one already downed enemy to another with your only adamantine weapon was many fun.

 

[Shadenuat]

Shouldn't any +4 count as adamantine?

Regardless, while slapping it on a ton of mobs might be dumb, I don't see issue with concept itself, if used on some single enemies.

I'll obviously play ez fun patched game.

 

[Volourn]

Are you supposed to lose Demonic Hunger randomly for giggles on the world map? It states that any non LG character can use so I have my barbarian using it. It just seems to randomly vanish. Is it a bug? Or is it 'too evil' for goodie two shoe parties that it just teleports away? Either way, my barb has no weapon now. LMAO


"They also rarely switch targets. The only reliable instance when they switch targets, in my experience, is if they are moving towards a character to attack in melee, but are intercepted by another character which attacks them in melee. Then they stop and fight the one who attacks them."

They'll often switch targets if they get an AOO on someone. They will gladly switch to that character. Learned the hard way. Not always but frequently enough. <>

 

[AwesomeButton]

Still better than the Kingmaker AI mods, where the enemy will ALWAYS target your magic classes, no matter whether they wear armour, the distance etc, which leads to hilarious games of "AoO conga lines". I'm also mixed on the notion of pre-buffed enemies who don't know they can be engaged in combat at any moment.

In Battle Brothers the AoO is something the AI takes into account. Sure, it's a much simpler ruleset than Pathfinder, but one can dream.

The best AI behavior would be what the DM usually does - give the party a hard time but avoid killing them unless the fight is something important to the plot. Make the enemies suddenly behave in a suboptimal way if you sense you might kill someone. The majority of players would be unaware of this of course. This way people will neither have to reload endlessly, nor turn the RPG into a game of "find the loophole in the AI's routines" which it isn't meant to be. Retain their immersion instead. And then the difficulty settings would merely adjust how tolerant the AI will be of the player's own suboptimal choices.

I'm curious what the "Advanced AI behavior" dropdown does in WotR's difficulty settings. It reminds me of the "Multiplayer" option in the main menu of Monkey Island 4.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Exception to this is charging. That should not be possible even through friendly characters. but I'm pretty sure it is in the game. But then charging has bigger issues than that right now.

Charging trough friendly characters definitely isn't possible in Wrath. Its extremely tricky and buggy in general (at least mounted on a large size mount).

Yeah, charging is still iffy even after patches. However, it can be done through other characters - as long as there is nobody at the end point of the charge, because you still can't end your turn in an occupied position. What's worse, you can even charge through hostile characters, something that definitely shouldn't be doable. And if the AI can pull it off as well, that could be an issue. Say you open up a fight with a nice AoE spell from your backline mage. This sets every enemy damaged targeting that mage, and unless they are engaged in melee, they will try to reach him. And if they too can charge through hostiles, they can just charge through your frontline fighters to do so (eating an AoO in process, but still). Can't be certain, but I have a feeling this is what is actually happening in the game.

Btw, is anyone else disappointed with new haramaki armor? I was so giddy after finding it, the perfect item for my Sword Saint. Except, it shuts down Canny Defense. Come on Owlcat, "When wearing light or no armor", it's right there in your own damn description of Canny Defense. Fix this shit.

 

[Rafidur]

How viable would this be as a duo team?

MC: Thug4/PetInquisitor16 (focus on intimidate), Trickster ("You are so good at demoralizing enemies that just entering combat against you is enough to demoralize them", "You are so good at demoralizing your enemies that they lose the will to fight ", "You are so good at demoralizing your enemies that they lose the will to live")

Mercenary: grey-fur transmuter, focus on pumping MC stats as high as possible, mostly for the strength to intimidate feat.


The idea would be to have every enemy instantly kill themselves as the chad MC strolls around - with maybe the "Instead of just avoiding attacks of opportunity by your acrobatic movements, you can instead make them yourself every time you avoid one" trickster stuff to walk around enemies as a giant mobile dragon and slamming them several times with a ton of str and a flat-flooted bonus (maybe sneak attacks?). Pet could be turned into a dragon too, why not.

Would that works? Any suggestions on improving it? Does lockpicking bosses work, and is that better than the mobility feats? If they pass the initial DC, can you keep yelling threats until they kill themselves?

 

[Cyberarmy]

How viable would this be as a duo team?

That'll be powerful team but at later levels, after mythic 3-4. You'll suffer a lot at start if you go duo from there.
For more lulz pick a halfling and ride a mastadon (which will turn into a dragon later)

 

[Delterius]

The idea would be to have every enemy instantly kill themselves

Won't be as useful as you think. Persuasion Tricks 2 and 3 don't run on your skill at persuasion, but a Will DC check of 10+Ranks in Persuasion. So at most you're looking at a DC check 30 by the end of the game. Same thing with Trickery Trick 3. And the problem with Trickster is that it's super late with it's greater tricks. I doubt anybody is gonna fail those saves by the time you are level 18 and fighting level 60 enemies or something.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Still on the topic of AI, I'm just going through Gwerm's Mansion again. It's a breeze with my new character, and especially in RTwP when I have the advantage in numbers, i.e. in attacks per unit of time.

So I'm going through the library on the first floor of Gwerm's Mansion where the Cultist Evoker is. His routine is always the same - casts invisibility on himself and starts summoning wolves. When I played this turn based on my first playthrough, he summoned at least 8 wolves in total, and since this was TB the corridor was too narrow for me to reach him and kill him, it was just full of wolves. This time I entered the library through the other side - through the dining room - and beelined for the evoker in RtwP. He managed to cast one summon before I hacked him down and that was because I was too lazy to counter his invisibility and relied on brute-forcing the attacks.

My point is - 1. RtwP is indeed better for some battles, and TB for others, and 2. most enemies are on a script and don't adapt their behavior. He didn't try to reposition himself after turning invisible although my melee characters were closing in on him.

 

[LannTheStupid]

No need to bring jrpgs into this. Deadfire has very decent AI scripts also.

Deadfire has the same scripting system that was called "tactics" in DA: Origins and DA-II, and "gambits" in FF-12 where it was introduced for the first time.

 

[Rafidur]

Persuasion Tricks 2 and 3 don't run on your skill at persuasion, but a Will DC check of 10+Ranks in Persuasion

Fuck!

 

[Sunri]

This shit takes 4 slots? this must be joke lol

 

[AwesomeButton]

No need to bring jrpgs into this. Deadfire has very decent AI scripts also.

Deadfire has the same scripting system that was called "tactics" in DA: Origins and DA-II, and "gambits" in FF-12 where it was introduced for the first time.

In fact I think the first scripting system was in BG2, at least I don't know of an earlier one. I was going to mention DA:O and PoE/Deadfire (I think PoE had the same system but it was not exposed for the players to use). They are other examples of games which support scripted behaviors but the game designers never used them, or barely ever used them, when designing the encounters. The developers did their job, which is to provide the tools for the designers, but the designers either wouldn't or didn't have time to do theirs fully.

 

[Haplo]

Still on the topic of AI, I'm just going through Gwerm's Mansion again. It's a breeze with my new character, and especially in RTwP when I have the advantage in numbers, i.e. in attacks per unit of time.

So I'm going through the library on the first floor of Gwerm's Mansion where the Cultist Evoker is. His routine is always the same - casts invisibility on himself and starts summoning wolves. When I played this turn based on my first playthrough, he summoned at least 8 wolves in total, and since this was TB the corridor was too narrow for me to reach him and kill him, it was just full of wolves. This time I entered the library through the other side - through the dining room - and beelined for the evoker in RtwP. He managed to cast one summon before I hacked him down and that was because I was too lazy to counter his invisibility and relied on brute-forcing the attacks.

My point is - 1. RtwP is indeed better for some battles, and TB for others, and 2. most enemies are on a script and don't adapt their behavior. He didn't try to reposition himself after turning invisible although my melee characters were closing in on him.

Yeah, I've had some Descari Cultists running away from my guys after a Marching Terror proc. They often did not come back, but rather spammed their negative channel far from my party...

 

[Heroic Liberator]

This shit takes 4 slots? this must be joke lol

Same with dragons. Really not worth it.

 

[Reinhardt]

Shouldn't any +4 count as adamantine?

Regardless, while slapping it on a ton of mobs might be dumb, I don't see issue with concept itself, if used on some single enemies.

I'll obviously play ez fun patched game.

+4 staff surely didn't - i tried it as my 2h fighter. And adamantine glaive can't be used by LG characters so i had to give it to fucking succubus to do the job.

 

[LannTheStupid]

In fact I think the first scripting system was in BG2, at least I don't know of an earlier one. I was going to mention DA:O and PoE/Deadfire (I think PoE had the same system but it was not exposed for the players to use).

I think in PoE-I and probably BG2 the scripting is on the level of "behaviour" as it is written on DA: O tactics panel. The default goals, so to speak.

Explicit "condition - action" slots - "tactics" or "gambits" - might not be implemented in those games even underneath.

 

[Mortmal]

In act 4 now, and the 'optional' bosses are starting to get pretty absurd

Spoiler

5+ attacks per turn, with enough attack bonus to guarantee hits against my ~35 AC dudes and dealing 30-50 damage per hit. How are you supposed to last even a single round next to something like that? So far I'm just resorting to skeleton summoning spam while peppering them with magic (lack of uncanny dodge is their one true weakness)

Most of then lasts many minutes. Is a problem? Yes. But is not as seriously as people portrait.

Spending 5 minutes buffing when entering every map and after every rest is pretty tedious. There's no real decision making either, you'll almost always slap down the same buffs.

People farther in the game than me correct me, but I think ~AC 35 is low on act 4. Also 5 attacks per turn was something I've seen even in act 2.

It might very well be, but barring insane minmaxing with mercs, I'm not sure how to get it much higher. Take these:

Now clearly this is not fully buffed (but also there aren't that many more buffs that give ac afaik, especially that stack with what I have), and it's not (ab)using things like monk bonus and neither have I spent every feat on AC, but this is still what I would consider a decent AC investment.
Both of these characters went from full hp to 0 in a single full attack from the enemy. After I had dispelled haste and one or two other buffs from it. That seems way too powerful to me, and makes me consider booting both of them so I can fit more (skeleton) summoners in my party. Admittedly checking stats on reload, the enemies attack was exactly +35 attacks so another 5 or 10 points would have a huge impact. But the enemy also has 50 AC, and it would be nice to not have hits only on a natural 20.

Otherwise please give tips on how to increase their AC. I know both have kinda bad enchantment bonus, but I haven't found any better full plate.

You should ask ga♥ for build advices he will explain you why the game is not overtuned and its completely normal to have AC superior to ancient gold dragon by mid game. Yes he's just like that , an helpful guy . Dont be shy to PM him a lot.

 

[Reinhardt]

its completely normal to have AC superior to ancient gold dragon by mid game

More like by the end of tutorial dungeon.

 

[Rafidur]

For the 40 natural AC enemies I just gave in in the middle of chapter 4, and brought ember back in with all the fire spell damage gear and her bar full of scorching ray, empowered scorching ray, empowered maximized scorching ray, quickened scorching ray...

 

[Sunri]

I just pew pew enemies with bows and they explode i use magic only for buffs

 

[Nerevar]

This Camellia was a REALLY stupid cunt tells me nothing about her character and is actually murdering people the whole time?

Most of the henchmen on this game are garbage foulcat really outdid themselves shittier henchmen than PF:K.

 

[LannTheStupid]

Now I wonder if by failed charging attempts in TB it is possible to trace the outlines of enemy and party hitboxes. Like by Monte Carlo method.

What is the minimum distance from one party member to the other so it becomes possible to charge between them? And is it less than the screen width?

 

[Jackpot]

How the fuck are you supposed to beat the arena fight with just Sosiel and his brother?
I had Sosiel drink a cocktail of potions and buffs before the fight, but Trevor still dies within seconds and Sosiel gets worn down over time.