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

[Longes]

oh I do! To be honest initiative is pretty shite early game, but now that I am facing mythic archers of doom I am taking every bit of it I can. I am probably going to take mythic imp. initiative too, which sucks majorly because I need so many of them... But also initiative still does nothing for some of the wave fights that happen in act4. Archers appear out of nowhere and get free turns before you get to even be allowed to target them. Not sure demonggraft is a good idea even with good initiative. Maybe I'll wing it anyway, azata aren't supposed to give a shit !

If you don't start the day by casting Mirror Image and Blink - then are you even really living?

 

[PrK]

So, finished the game (on core, about 200h), here are some short thoughts, mostly vis a vis Kingmaker.
For a buildfag it’s a spectacular game, and will be even better when it’s patched so more than half the feats/abilities work correctly. I’m eagerly waiting for the release of the roguelike mode.
There are some nice encounters, particularly boss fights, that are challenging and interesting, but overall there are too many uninspiring, copy-pasted ones, especially at the latter parts of game. That fact combined with the nonexistent AI makes it a real shame, as it hampers the enjoyment of your creatively built party in actual combat situations, when mostly everything has stats, immunities and innate abilities up the ass to make up for lackluster composition and scripting.
Story wise it starts abysmally, basically mandating a demon playthrough so you can cull all those pathetic, degenerate NPCs that boss you around, but it gets better later, and chapter 4 was quite nice (the roating camera gimmick was cool there if I’m being honest). Still, Kingmaker was far ahead in this department. The central theme was not as intriguing as Kingmaker’s curses one, but maybe with different choices it shines more. Companions are on par with Kingmaker, with some stand out ones like Regill. Reactivity, especially along the mythic paths is great and miles ahead of anything in Kingmaker. And since mythic paths besides story offer gameplay variety, it makes it a very replayable game (if you can stomach going through some of the worst stretches again).
The crusade minigame is a joke.
Music is amazing.
It is quite buggy still, if you’re interested just wait.
All in all, the character building is so good it makes it worth playing, but it is a step down from Kingmaker in almost every other way.

 

[Longes]

Story wise it starts abysmally, basically mandating a demon playthrough so you can cull all those pathetic, degenerate NPCs that boss you around, but it gets better later, and chapter 4 was quite nice (the roating camera gimmick was cool there if I’m being honest). Still, Kingmaker was far ahead in this department. The central theme was not as intriguing as Kingmaker’s curses one, but maybe with different choices it shines more. Companions are on par with Kingmaker, with some stand out ones like Regill. Reactivity, especially along the mythic paths is great and miles ahead of anything in Kingmaker. And since mythic paths besides story offer gameplay variety, it makes it a very replayable game (if you can stomach going through some of the worst stretches again).
..
All in all, the character building is so good it makes it worth playing, but it is a step down from Kingmaker in almost every other way.

I guess I'll have to disagree. Kenabres + March on Drezen is way better than the Stag Lord hunt, since you aren't fucking around in side-quest dungeons like the Kobold Tree and getting your ass wrecked by random encounters. And Areelu is a far better and more charismatic villain than Nyrissa.

Though ultimately I suppose it comes down to which theme and feel you like more. Kingmaker is a low-end rags-to-riches story about relatively mundane adventures with a very monster-of-the-week feel. Wrath is about ramping up to demon lords, insane archmages, and crazy extraplanar shit. I like Wrath's story more, but IMHO both are valid.

Personally, an issue that I have with both games, is that I want smaller games with tighter stories and I want them now. I want companions who interact with each other, instead of wondering why Ember has no input on Seelah's and Arueshalae's storylines. I want fewer mythic paths that have greater integration. Disco Elysium is actually a hyper-linear game where you can never hop off the central plot train and nothing you do matters, but it does an amazing job of tricking you into thinking that the things you do matter and have impact. While Wrath will frequently have you do things only for the tail end to disappear into the aether.

 

[volklore]

Fey > Demons fite me

 

[Longes]

Fey > Demons fite me

Devils > Demons fite me

 

[LannTheStupid]

Kingmaker is a low-end rags-to-riches story about relatively mundane adventures with a very monster-of-the-week feel. Wrath is about ramping up to demon lords, insane archmages, and crazy extraplanar shit. I like Wrath's story more, but IMHO both are valid.

So far I feel like in Kingmaker the protagonist had much more agency in the first 2 acts. The player was given sovereignty right away, so gallows can be built, and people die by the players decree. In Wrath the player is a small cog in the crusade machine. Even the half-orc who lost the whole city and is left with a small tavern is bossing the player around. This leaves bad taste in the mouth and pushes to the evil path.

On the other hand, may be the payback will be sweet.

 

[Ulysa]

I want to be a tank but with intelligence. Is there any class and build not too complicated for this? Thank you

 

[Longes]

Kingmaker is a low-end rags-to-riches story about relatively mundane adventures with a very monster-of-the-week feel. Wrath is about ramping up to demon lords, insane archmages, and crazy extraplanar shit. I like Wrath's story more, but IMHO both are valid.

So far I feel like in Kingmaker the protagonist had much more agency in the first 2 acts. The player was given sovereignty right away, so gallows can be built, and people die by the players decree. In Wrath the player is a small cog in the crusade machine. Even the half-orc who lost the whole city and is left with a small tavern is bossing the player around. This leaves bad taste in the mouth and pushes to the evil path.

On the other hand, may be the payback will be sweet.

There are two big flavors of payback: be a lich/demon and blow 'em up. Or be a Devil and sell out the country to devil-worshipping slave-owning turbo-facsists from Cheliax.
As for agency, is "go retake Drezen" that different from "go shank the Stag Lord"?

I want to be a tank but with intelligence. Is there any class and build not too complicated for this? Thank you

The easiest you can do is Alchemist (Vivisectionist) 20. They get pretty beefy by mid-game, do good damage with sneak attacks, and can be made even beefier with dips into Monk, Barbarian (Instinctual Warrior) or Student Of War (Wis or Cha to AC, Wis to AC, Int to AC respectively)
Fighter (Aldori Defender) 2/Monk (Scaled Fist) 1/Ranger (Demonslayer) 2/Aldori Swordmaster 5/Aldori Defender 10 will get you an insanely tanky unarmored swordsman, and you want roughly Int 14 and Cha 16 for it. Take the intimdation feat line (dazzling display, shatter defenses).

 

[Riel]

I want to be a tank but with intelligence. Is there any class and build not too complicated for this? Thank you

Magus Weapon Master gets to cast arcane spells and gets bonus AC from INT. Add to that Mirror Image, Blur, Displacement, Invisibility, Stone Skin.... and the mandatory Crane Style and you will have a melee tank spell caster. In Kingmaker it worked very well for me, but I haven't tried it in Wrath, you could try Azata I guess.

EDIT: By Weapon Master I meant Sword Saint.

 

[smaug]

So, finished the game (on core, about 200h), here are some short thoughts, mostly vis a vis Kingmaker.
For a buildfag it’s a spectacular game, and will be even better when it’s patched so more than half the feats/abilities work correctly. I’m eagerly waiting for the release of the roguelike mode.
There are some nice encounters, particularly boss fights, that are challenging and interesting, but overall there are too many uninspiring, copy-pasted ones, especially at the latter parts of game. That fact combined with the nonexistent AI makes it a real shame, as it hampers the enjoyment of your creatively built party in actual combat situations, when mostly everything has stats, immunities and innate abilities up the ass to make up for lackluster composition and scripting.
Story wise it starts abysmally, basically mandating a demon playthrough so you can cull all those pathetic, degenerate NPCs that boss you around, but it gets better later, and chapter 4 was quite nice (the roating camera gimmick was cool there if I’m being honest). Still, Kingmaker was far ahead in this department. The central theme was not as intriguing as Kingmaker’s curses one, but maybe with different choices it shines more. Companions are on par with Kingmaker, with some stand out ones like Regill. Reactivity, especially along the mythic paths is great and miles ahead of anything in Kingmaker. And since mythic paths besides story offer gameplay variety, it makes it a very replayable game (if you can stomach going through some of the worst stretches again).
The crusade minigame is a joke.
Music is amazing.
It is quite buggy still, if you’re interested just wait.
All in all, the character building is so good it makes it worth playing, but it is a step down from Kingmaker in almost every other way.

I haven’t played past CH3 so maybe mythic path reactivity gets better but in adding reactivity to mythic paths, alignment reactivity gets shafted unfortunately. So I guess it was pick and choose but whatever

 

[The_Mask]

I want to be a tank but with intelligence. Is there any class and build not too complicated for this? Thank you

You can also try monk, of course. Just dump CHA. Look around to increasing AC with rings of deflection, and maybe a merc Alchemist that can add shield to you. Put as much as you please in INT, as it'll just increase the skills you can use. Traditional Monk is the simplest. No need to search for weapons, as your whole body is your weapon. Feats and progression is pretty straightforward.

My post above may or may not have an agenda. :D :D :D

 

[Ulysa]

I want to be a tank but with intelligence. Is there any class and build not too complicated for this? Thank you

Magus Weapon Master gets to cast arcane spells and gets bonus AC from INT. Add to that Mirror Image, Blur, Displacement, Invisibility, Stone Skin.... and the mandatory Crane Style and you will have a melee tank spell caster. In Kingmaker it worked very well for me, but I haven't tried it in Wrath, you could try Azata I guess.

EDIT: By Weapon Master I meant Sword Saint.

Thank you, I've checked this and is just what I wanted . Reason is I started playing and didn't like the NPC tanks, so I decided to do it myself hahah, I'm never a tank I'm always rogue or wizard so this should be fun. :D

 

[Delterius]

fuck it. gonna play divination wizard.

changed my mind, gonna play overwhelming mage

 

[Lagole Gon]

Holy shit, fuck that AC on borg demons. I will come back later with bigger swords.

 

[Bloodeyes]

I want to be a tank but with intelligence. Is there any class and build not too complicated for this? Thank you

Sword Saint. Arguably the strongest class in the game. Gets INT based AC bonus similar to what a monk gets with WIZ along with mirror image. Empower spell + maximize spell for spell strike with shocking grasp using a crit weapon like an estoc kills everything quick. A bit too OP to be fun long term though. It's like having god mode on.

 

[Jermu]

Pathfinder Studio Staff Form Tabletop Game Developer Union
https://screenrant.com/paizo-union-pathfinder-tabletop-game-dev/

 

[Mauman]

Pathfinder Studio Staff Form Tabletop Game Developer Union
https://screenrant.com/paizo-union-pathfinder-tabletop-game-dev/

Whelp, if I was an executive at Paizo, at least I'd know who to fire.

I expect 2E to get even worse than it already is after this.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Is this possible in-game?

 

[TheEntitledOne]

Is this possible in-game?

Not sure, but you can scare some succubi away by threatening to turn them good.

 

[Cryomancer]

I expect 2E to get even worse than it already is after this.

Me too. I just don’t get. Paizo got a massive success when WoTC decided to push they generic wow clone : tabletop edition AKA D&D 4E. Even outsold D&D, a thing which never happened on the history of TTRPG. A decade later, they decided to … Mix 4E and 5E. IMO they should made PF2E more akin to D&D 2E. Picking the good aspects from 2E(more immersion, higher lethality) and good aspects from 3E(player customization, simpler math), not taking a lot of stuff from 4e and 5e which are the worst edition of D&D and a edition that resembles more WoW than D&D.

At 1h27m : 1:27 https://youtu.be/hN6Qb60yQnk?t=5270 Which AP should OwlCat adapt next in their game. And they talked about Iron Gods, Skull & Shakles and runelords BRIEFLY. But I wish that their next AP will gonna be one of this. The fact that they are not mentioning 2E APs is a huge Going D&D 5E or PF2E wold be awful. Would downgrade the unique modern RPG great as old school RPG's in "Solasta" tier. Which is not bad, just not as great as it can be. But I believe that their next AP will be Iron Gods. Lets see if I'm right.

The worst thing that can happen with a next Pathfinder game is going 2E.

 

[Mauman]

But I believe that their next AP will be Iron Gods. Lets see if I'm right.

The worst thing that can happen with a next Pathfinder game is going 2E.

Man, as much as I'd rather see Shackles come up as their next one, I'm looking REALLY forward to the massive meltdown that'll happen if Iron Gods gets picked. Gonna be fuckin' hilarious.

Either AP I'd finally get my gunslinger, so it's cool.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I'm looking REALLY forward to the massive meltdown that'll happen if Iron Gods gets picked. Gonna be fuckin' hilarious.

I don't know enough about these APs to get your point. Why would there be a meltdown?

 

[Mauman]

I don't know enough about these APs to get your point. Why would there be a meltdown?

Let me put it this way.

The Blackwater stuff originates from Numeria. Numeria is where Iron Gods takes place.

Imagine Barbarians armed with both melee weapons and guns (both traditional projectile and sci-fi variants) vs Giant robots and you get a pretty good picture of what you'll be expecting.

Kingmaker had some of this stuff too, but it was more subtle than Blackwater (specifically the alchemist item you could find made from fucking NANITES).

 

[Cryomancer]

But I believe that their next AP will be Iron Gods. Lets see if I'm right.

The worst thing that can happen with a next Pathfinder game is going 2E.

Man, as much as I'd rather see Shackles come up as their next one, I'm looking REALLY forward to the massive meltdown that'll happen if Iron Gods gets picked. Gonna be fuckin' hilarious.

Either AP I'd finally get my gunslinger, so it's cool.

I have heard many people saying that gunslinger is too OP. I strongly disagree. I mean :

• Tier 10 spells for Lich/Angels = OK
• Muskets? Too overpowered!!!!

A tier 10 spell for Lich

"Absolute Death Feeling of the imminent death fills the targets heart. It makes a Will saving throw. If it is fails, the target immediately dies. If the save is successful, the target receives 10 damage per caster level."

So, if the targets fails the same, he instantly dies. If succeed, he takes the same damage that a wail of the banshee does if he fails the save

 

[LannTheStupid]

Sooo... I am starting to hate the rotating camera.

When it is a picture with only one point of view, and the party is walking there - it is easy to forget that everything is flat.

But when there is a camera, and I can see different sides of all objects - and my brain expects it to be a full 3D world. And yet - when I want to send the party under the bridge it goes up to the battlements. When I want to go to the roof - it goes to the house door. Because the world is still flat, it just better lies that it is 3-dimensional.

Dear developers. Do not introduce the rotating camera until your game is made on a fully 3D engine. Please.