Pathfinder Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Beta Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Sykar]

Decided to peak reddit questions (I know my mistake)

Why people always ask this garbage question? Do they know that the Lich ritual involves the sacrifice of a innocent life?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transvaluation_of_values

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1934/1934-h/1934-h.htm

“Surgeons must be very careful
When they take the knife!
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the Culprit - Life!”

Well there is:
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Baelnorn_lich

 

[ferratilis]

Obshitstain shills in full force on plebbit already. 2nd September can't come soon enough.

I see nothing incorrect here

Technically not incorrect, but based on the choice of adverb and adjectives you can see it's a shill. 'Extremely engaging,' 'exceptional' is going a bit too far. Decent, good, great even would be more acceptable.

And I fucking love PoE, but let's be real here.

 

[Alienman]

can my character be transgender?

Transgender is the true neutral choice.

 

[Reinhardt]

Liches are transgenders. They liked dresses so much they decided to wear them for centuries.

 

[Riel]

Obshitstain shills in full force on plebbit already. 2nd September can't come soon enough.

Honestly if we are talking about world building I do agree. PoE's setting is mature and with some philosophical questions, Pathfinder's narrative is direct and to the point in a bland and generic high fantasy world.
Where Kingmaker throws PoE into the mud is in gameplay, PoE's combat is boring and bland and it's character system irrelevant, on the other hand Pathfinder's is complex, deep and sweetly unbalanced, there are many paths to power but not all paths lead to balanced characters as it should. Otherwise... what's the point of "building"....

 

[rusty_shackleford]

golarion is just forgotten realms except with a different name
I didn't think it was possible to be more uninteresting than forgotten realms, but golarion managed it by being a generic version of it

 

[Lacrymas]

Well there is:
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Baelnorn_lich

A good lich has existed since 2E - https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Archlich

 

[Zeriel]

Decided to peak reddit questions (I know my mistake)

Why people always ask this garbage question? Do they know that the Lich ritual involves the sacrifice of a innocent life?

Liches can be any alignment. Per the 2e ruleset, at least.

In rare cases, liches of a most unusual nature can be found which are of any alignment.

Liches are basically turbo-autists who are beyond good and evil. They just care about their to-scale miniature model train sets magical research. However, they don't care about human life, so they're usually seen as evil based on their actions.

Though, yes, it requires a lot of humanoid blood to be shed. Including a virgin and some infants. Maybe they could have used orcs?

My main issue with this argument, which is to say Takamori's, not yours, is that "you do mean things" is not the definition of "evil" in these games usually. Sure they may say, "Evil is being selfish", but that's in the eye of the beholder despite the core conceit of the alignment system being black & white morality.

Is a lich who ascends by sacrificing only evil aligned people still evil? Golarion's lore is so retarded the proper answer would be, "Yes" but only because they replaced Sigil with the Boneyard and the Ao with Pharasma who hates Undead. But in terms of just pure alignment faggotry, I think it's heavily up for debate. And I know Owlcat tends to lean in the direction of providing different paths even if it isn't supported by the idiots who wrote the Pathfinder setting.

That is usually called Lawful Evil. You do Evil acts thinking it is for the greater good.

Also a character like Dexter only killed Evil people. He was still not considered a good guy.

Lawful Evil is supposed to mean using the Law to accomplish acts that only benefit yourself (i.e, evil). In original alignment system, killing babies of a race that is evil is not an evil act. Everyone has their own idea of what this means, but largely this rule still applies to a lot of the modern iterations of D&D, except when the moral system of some author intrudes.

In Golarion, the rule seems to be undead are evil across the board... because. No real justification except Pharasma says so. I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't played yet, but the NPC Lich who

Spoiler

provides some help on your path to becoming a Lich in WOTR is basically a perfect example of the original question. He's a guy who became a Lich for all the right reasons, to win a battle for the "greater good", and it is only after being a Lich for a long time that he "goes bad". But you could as well argue he is still sticking to the greater good in terms of prioritizing destroying the Worldwound over the welfare of living beings, and this SAME rubric applies to the actions of the Gods and even "good" rulers in the story, who do all sorts of horrible things to some living people with the justification that less will suffer once the Worldwound is dealt with, rather than standing on principle. But the gods and the mortals doing heinous things are good just because, while undead are undead because original sin or something.

To a certain degree I think Owlcat is playing off the inconsistencies in the alignment system as presented in Golarion by providing you different choices in most Mythic paths, but what "good" or "evil" means in terms of Wrath's storyline gets really fucking confusing even from the outset. Sometimes doing mean things to demons is evil. Other times its good. Its all very schizophrenic. This especially goes for the Hellknight stuff which is often classified as Lawful Evil even when it doesn't make sense (for example, the Hellknights are not prioritizing their own benefit, quite the opposite).

 

[fantadomat]

Decided to peak reddit questions (I know my mistake)

Why people always ask this garbage question? Do they know that the Lich ritual involves the sacrifice of a innocent life?

Liches can be any alignment. Per the 2e ruleset, at least.

In rare cases, liches of a most unusual nature can be found which are of any alignment.

Liches are basically turbo-autists who are beyond good and evil. They just care about their to-scale miniature model train sets magical research. However, they don't care about human life, so they're usually seen as evil based on their actions.

Though, yes, it requires a lot of humanoid blood to be shed. Including a virgin and some infants. Maybe they could have used orcs?

My main issue with this argument, which is to say Takamori's, not yours, is that "you do mean things" is not the definition of "evil" in these games usually. Sure they may say, "Evil is being selfish", but that's in the eye of the beholder despite the core conceit of the alignment system being black & white morality.

Is a lich who ascends by sacrificing only evil aligned people still evil? Golarion's lore is so retarded the proper answer would be, "Yes" but only because they replaced Sigil with the Boneyard and the Ao with Pharasma who hates Undead. But in terms of just pure alignment faggotry, I think it's heavily up for debate. And I know Owlcat tends to lean in the direction of providing different paths even if it isn't supported by the idiots who wrote the Pathfinder setting.

That is usually called Lawful Evil. You do Evil acts thinking it is for the greater good.

Also a character like Dexter only killed Evil people. He was still not considered a good guy.

Lawful Evil is supposed to mean using the Law to accomplish acts that only benefit yourself (i.e, evil). In original alignment system, killing babies of a race that is evil is not an evil act. Everyone has their own idea of what this means, but largely this rule still applies to a lot of the modern iterations of D&D, except when the moral system of some author intrudes.

In Golarion, the rule seems to be undead are evil across the board... because. No real justification except Pharasma says so. I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't played yet, but the NPC Lich who

Spoiler

provides some help on your path to becoming a Lich in WOTR is basically a perfect example of the original question. He's a guy who became a Lich for all the right reasons, to win a battle for the "greater good", and it is only after being a Lich for a long time that he "goes bad". But you could as well argue he is still sticking to the greater good in terms of prioritizing destroying the Worldwound over the welfare of living beings, and this SAME rubric applies to the actions of the Gods and even "good" rulers in the story, who do all sorts of horrible things to some living people with the justification that less will suffer once the Worldwound is dealt with, rather than standing on principle. But the gods and the mortals doing heinous things are good just because, while undead are undead because original sin or something.

To a certain degree I think Owlcat is playing off the inconsistencies in the alignment system as presented in Golarion by providing you different choices in most Mythic paths, but what "good" or "evil" means in terms of Wrath's storyline gets really fucking confusing even from the outset. Sometimes doing mean things to demons is evil. Other times its good. Its all very schizophrenic. This especially goes for the Hellknight stuff which is often classified as Lawful Evil even when it doesn't make sense (for example, the Hellknights are not prioritizing their own benefit, quite the opposite).

Yeah,good and evil is twisted by a modern libtard looking glass.

 

[Lacrymas]

In Golarion, the rule seems to be undead are evil across the board... because. No real justification except Pharasma says so.

That's true in Forgotten Realms too, but it isn't because the gods say so. The gods play by the exact same rules as non-gods when it comes to alignment. It's just a thing the universe decides and you are evil/good because.

 

[fantadomat]

In Golarion, the rule seems to be undead are evil across the board... because. No real justification except Pharasma says so.

That's true in Forgotten Realms, but it isn't because the gods say so. The gods play by the exact same rules as non-gods when it comes to alignment. It's just a thing the universe decides and you are evil/good because.

Hmmm i am curious if there is some connection between demons/devils and evil gods. What is their relationship?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

ummm excuse me sweaty a demon can be good if it wants to be, stop being racist

 

[Lacrymas]

Hmmm i am curious if there is some connection between demons/devils and evil gods. What is their relationship?

In the Forgotten Realms? There is no general connection. The gods of the Hells and the Abyss are the only ones who have something to do with that, afaik.

 

[Zeriel]

In Golarion, the rule seems to be undead are evil across the board... because. No real justification except Pharasma says so.

That's true in Forgotten Realms too, but it isn't because the gods say so. The gods play by the exact same rules as non-gods when it comes to alignment. It's just a thing the universe decides and you are evil/good because.

I generally like Forgotten Realms/Planescape lore a lot more. They really fucked up the Planescape derived stuff in Golarion. But then... D&D completely fucked up Forgotten Realms and Planescape in later editions too so I guess I can't blame Pathfinder entirely for that.

 

[Doktor Best]

Imho PFK's biggest flaw was its inventory management. It has a nice inventory UI but the gameplay is so reliant on consumables due to all the different effects you need to protect yourself from and resting restriction that you are searching your inventory very often for potions and scrolls. I would find the exact potion i need within seconds if the damn inventory had a keyword search function, but apparently none of the devs ever played the game on higher difficulties.

 

[NJClaw]

ummm excuse me sweaty a demon can be good if it wants to be, stop being racist

Mh, yes?

Unless you're somehow able to rationalize Lawful Neutral demons but not Good ones.

Imho PFK's biggest flaw was its inventory management. It has a nice inventory UI but the gameplay is so reliant on consumables due to all the different effects you need to protect yourself from and resting restriction that you are searching your inventory very often for potions and scrolls. I would find the exact potion i need within seconds if the damn inventory had a keyword search function, but apparently none of the devs ever played the game on higher difficulties.

If you aren't able to differentiate between potions using their icons, shapes, and colors then you're not worthy of using them.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

ummm excuse me sweaty a demon can be good if it wants to be, stop being racist

Mh, yes?

Unless you're somehow able to rationalize Lawful Neutral demons but not Good ones.

I like PST's companion rooster, FfG included. But that character shouldn't be allowed to exist in the lore. (Same with Nordom, although I'm guessing that those are technically robots and thus have no innate metaphysical nature?)

 

[Zeriel]

ummm excuse me sweaty a demon can be good if it wants to be, stop being racist

Mh, yes?

Unless you're somehow able to rationalize Lawful Neutral demons but not Good ones.

I like PST's companion rooster, FfG included. But that character shouldn't be allowed to exist in the lore. (Same with Nordom, although I'm guessing that those are technically robots and thus have no innate metaphysical nature?)

Pretty sure modrons going rogue was canon to Planescape lore before Torment.

It also stands to reason if angels can fall and become demons then the reverse should be possible. But I think the underlying problem here is the successor rulesets and settings simply lacked the richness of Planescape era's lore which allowed a lot of flexibility and creativity, and now it's just dumb rules. Leading to such hilarity in Golarion as Hell being officially "misogynistic".

A post on the Modron question:

The idea of a 'Rogue Modron' originates from the Planescape Campaign Setting, specifically in The Planewalker's Handbook, on page 76.

Modrons are the clockwork caretakers of the gears of Mechanus, virtually unthinking in their strict hierarchical order. No beings’ minds are as focused on law, stability, repetition, and the security of harmonious regulation. But the multiverse isn’t perfect - not even in Mechanus - and sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes a modron receives conflicting orders from two or more superiors, or is confronted with incontrovertible proof that all is not orderly. Sometimes a modron’s mind just snaps.

These circumstances create rogue modrons. When modrons go rogue, they lose most of their special abilities and even the normal modron form that designates their position within the clockwork hierarchy. They find themselves cast out of Mechanus, the heart of law and the only world they have ever known, and plunged into the cold, lonely, and (worst of all) chaotic multiverse. Rogue modrons have the forbidden and reprehensible glimmerings of self-awareness, the only thing that allows them to survive in this new sphere.

There's a lot more detail on them in that book, I'd suggest giving it a read. But the heart of it is that Modron's are creatures of pure order...and exposing them to too much disorder (especially within their own ranks) is not good for their minds.

The biggest takeaway here, though, is this: They are self-aware. Normal Modrons are not. A Rogue Modron is no longer part of the mechanical hierarchy that is Modron civilization. Also of note...they all look basically like Quadrones.

I would also note that 5E does have an extra way they can 'Go Rogue'

A modron unit sometimes becomes defective, either through natural decay or exposure to chaotic forces.

MM224

Couple that rule with The Great Modron March (mentioned on the same page of the Monster Manual), and you have a vast host of Modrons trucking around the Outer Planes. Some of which are very chaotic indeed. To give you a hook to work with...this sounds like a great opportunity to expose Modrons to 'chaotic energies' or 'proof that all is not orderly' and possibly cause large groups of them to go Rogue.

If anything, I'd say Nordom is one of the most canon things in Torment. FFG was always the one that triggered people and got a lot more skepticism.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

ummm excuse me sweaty a demon can be good if it wants to be, stop being racist

Mh, yes?

Unless you're somehow able to rationalize Lawful Neutral demons but not Good ones.

Do you really think a demon would do that? Just lie to your face?

Spoiler

Take Fall-From-Grace to Vrischika's shop.

 

[Haplo]

(...) PoE's combat is boring and bland and it's character system irrelevant, on the other hand Pathfinder's is complex, deep and sweetly unbalanced, there are many paths to power but not all paths lead to balanced characters as it should. Otherwise... what's the point of "building"....

Nigger, please. I do enjoy PoE2 combat, but YMMV, I guess. However the PoE2 character development system is definitely very rich, impactful and also sweetly unbalanced.
Fact is, it is difficult to even compete in the character building with Pathfinders. But there are not many games with character building options as robust as PoE2 with its multiclassing and how various abilities interact with each other.

 

[NJClaw]

I like PST's companion rooster, FfG included. But that character shouldn't be allowed to exist in the lore. (Same with Modron, although I'm guessing that those are technically robots and thus have no innate metaphysical nature?)

Modrons represent the embodiment of the concepts of law and order exactly as demons do for evil and chaos. They're born from the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus and know nothing but lawfully obeying their direct superiors. Both creatures should mindlessly obey their innate metaphysical nature, but unique sparks able to change a being's nature against all odds are part of the "system".

Do you really think a demon would do that? Just lie to your face?

Spoiler

Take Fall-From-Grace to Vrischika's shop.

I'm well aware of that dialogue, but it changes nothing. Vrischika hates her and she's actively trying to goad you into selling your companions into slavery. Not only that, but she openly lies to you by telling that she has never met you before, while later you learn that one of your incarnations sold her some slaves. There are literally zero reasons to believe her apart from you wanting to prove the unreasonable point that a character whose character's sheet explicitly states she's Lawful Neutral is actually Chaotic Evil.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I like PST's companion rooster, FfG included. But that character shouldn't be allowed to exist in the lore. (Same with Modron, although I'm guessing that those are technically robots and thus have no innate metaphysical nature?)

Modrons represent the embodiment of the concepts of law and order exactly as demons do for evil and chaos. They're born from the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus and know nothing but lawfully obeying their direct superiors. Both creatures should mindlessly obey their innate metaphysical nature, but unique sparks able to change a being's nature against all odds are part of the "system".

Do you really think a demon would do that? Just lie to your face?

Spoiler

Take Fall-From-Grace to Vrischika's shop.

I'm well aware of that dialogue, but it changes nothing. Vrischika hates her and she's actively trying to goad you into selling your companions into slavery. Not only that, but she openly lies to you by telling that she has never met you before, while later you learn that one of your incarnations sold her some slaves. There are literally zero reasons to believe her apart from you wanting to prove the unreasonable point that a character whose character's sheet explicitly states she's Lawful Neutral is actually Chaotic Evil.

"b-b-but the character sheet says she's lawful neutral!"
and my monster manual says she's chaotic evil, eat shit

 

[NJClaw]

"b-b-but the character sheet says she's lawful neutral!"
and my monster manual says she's chaotic evil, eat shit

You know that one of the most fundamental rules of this game is that specific trumps generic, right?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

"b-b-but the character sheet says she's lawful neutral!"
and my monster manual says she's chaotic evil, eat shit

You know that one of the most fundamental rules of this game is that specific trumps generic, right?

all demons are evil and are to be slaughtered

 

[Heroic Liberator]

unique sparks able to change a being's nature against all odds are part of the "system".

Then having supernatural races tied to various alignment-bound planes is nonsensical. Either the devils are lawful evil (respectively demons for chaotic evil) and thus their plane is the embodiment of lawful evilness or the plane shapes the morality of its inhabitants and thus any race, supernatural or otherwise, should be able to live there and be melded to the right alignment.