Pathfinder Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Enhanced Edition - now with A Dance of Masks epilogue DLC

[Haplo]

After dicking around in Drezen after conquering it and doing mostly crusade stuff, I went directly south to Wintersun. Holy fuck is this place challenging. I don't think I'm suppose to be here yet. I spent most of my hour trying to kill that Ancient Treant. After finally pulling it off, I come across another one. Reload be thy name. There are lots of tough enemies here, but most of them are managable. Even that savage barbarian horde that sends about a dozen charging warriors right at you. I think I might have to sit this one out and return when I have my big boy pants on. It's just not quite worth the effort at this level. I'm on the cusp of 11.

Well, I like to do some small stuff before it (Greengates, that area with captured crusaders), but still Wintersun is one of my first areas in Act 3. Its lovely! Like 2 levels worth of xp there!

The Ancient treant is indeed challenging - you should better have some ray caster to dispose of it from safety - and pets or summons to keep him at a distance, as trying to melee it is just a big NOPE!
Then there are optional ancient ghosts you can anger, which also need decent tactics - but give a shit ton of xp, so totally worth it!

Otherwise I'd say the area is not that difficult. The cave fight isn't very easy, but is not that hard either.

Easy xp farm overall!
Always do it before the dragon.

 

[Nikanuur]

I'm thinking replay. I've finished the first run shortly after the full release. Could someone please summ up; have there been any significant changes I can look forward too? DLC's any good?

 

[volklore]

Demons get good aspects at M5 instead of later which is nice, Aeon has slightly improved action economy, some shit got fixed like elemental barrage etc...
The scroll vendor in act 1 got nerfed hard.
Oh, and apparently, every single dretch in act 1 opens with casting stinking cloud now so there is use in having 1 cast of single target delay poison.

 

[volklore]

I've been playing a lot of act1 on unfair with TTT and I just realized magic weapon spells don't stack with existing weapon enhancement bonus (was written in changelog but didn't see).
Is there any other way to bump it up bar the arcane poll style class abilities that do so or are you relegated to finding new weapons?

 

[Cyberarmy]

you are relegated to finding new weapons

 

[LannTheStupid]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1184370/view/3710445617571904934?l=english

Update 2.1.3j

Greetings, Pathfinders!

An update 2.1.3j is here! Due to some critical issues, we had to reassemble some parts of the game’s resources, which increased the size of this patch to 5 Gb. Please take that into consideration if your internet access is limited.

Highlights:

• Fixed the issue with some spells failing instead of being cast, such as cure wounds;
• Fixed a number of issues with the physics of the cloaks;
• Fixed some issues with The Last Sarkorians DLC.

If you are playing with mods, don’t forget to update them before loading your saves!

Beware of possible plot spoilers below!

Spoiler

Areas

• Fixed the issue in the Lost Chapel in which Ulbrig, remaining in the camp, remotely participated in dialogues;
• During the first arrival to Threshold, the party could end up being teleported to Nocticula's palace. This happened if Demon's mythic quest Conspiracy in Shadows wasn't complete – the issue is now fixed;
• Fixed the issue where the vortex of souls inside the cave in the Forest of the Forgotten Spirits did not disappear after cleansing it from the corruption;
• Fixed the rest on the final arena in Enigma;
• On the Legend path, skipping the cut-scene with Iomedae in Gray Garrison could cause the game to freeze – fixed.

Quests

• Arueshalae's quest in chapter 5 could get stuck on the Talk to Anevia objective, if it hadn't been complete before Iz, and Anevia left Drezen after. Now, this quest will fail in that situation;
• During Demon's mythic quest 'Once in Alushinyrra...', after the victory over the first gladiator, an autosave was created. After loading it, it was no longer possible to continue the quest – fixed;
• In The Last Sarkorians DLC, if the quest to cure the hunters wasn't accepted, it was impossible to cure them, as the cure had no effect – fixed;
• In Through the Ashes DLC, the book event about escaping from the cemetery didn't have an illustration – fixed;
• The objectives of ‘A Common Cause’ quest will be calculated correctly now during the conversation with Irabeth, when you report that you are ready to storm Gray Garrison.

Items

• Bonuses from Bracers of Mighty Boar are no longer added to Vital Strike;
• Now it's no longer possible to copy or change Finnean with illusions of the Prestidigipainter Golem.

Classes & Mechanics

• After fighting the bear spirit, the characters could receive a permanent shaken condition, which was impossible to remove – fixed;
• All constructs are now immune to mind-affecting spells and abilities;
• Fixed the issue that made it impossible to continue the quest with the pirate maps on the islands in the Treasure of the Midnight Islands DLC;
• Fixed the issue with some spells failing instead of being cast, such as cure wounds;
• The sword saint's abilities Perfect Strike and Perfect Critical weren't deactivated if its charges dropped to zero – fixed.

UI

• After rotating the camera, the compass direction didn't match the camera direction in the map UI – fixed;
• Comparison of weapons in the inventory has been improved;
• It was impossible to equip Finnean after a polymorph effect removal – fixed;
• Spells, reduced to level 0 via the Completely Normal metamagic, couldn't be added to the action bar when playing with a controller – fixed;
• The shared stash button didn't work in the interface of the Prestidigipainter Golem – fixed;
• When playing with a controller, graphic elements from the previous screen could be seen over the character's model during character creation – fixed;
• When playing with a controller, opening the difficulty settings window would display the player's difficulty as Custom, regardless of what difficulty was actually selected – fixed;
• When playing with a controller, the icons to interact with the puzzle pieces were duplicating, which made it difficult to solve these puzzles – fixed.

Visual

• Certain effects, such as tentacles and chains, could sometimes disappear – fixed, to Sir Allfrey's utter horror;
• Fixed a number of issues with the physics of the cloaks;
• Fixed the animation of flying Vroks in Drezen;
• The commander no longer has any active effects in Arueshalae's vision in Areelu's Laboratory;
• The Sovereign Dragon pet could lose his textures and turn pink – fixed.

Misс

• In chapter 4, asking Daeran to spend some time together in Nexus could make the main character unable to shapeshift anymore – fixed;
• It was inconvenient for shifter characters to drink in animal form, so they will shift into their original form now to celebrate the victory in the end of chapter 1;
• Romance dialogue with Sosiel in chapter 5 was interrupted prematurely if you chose an evil mythic path and non-romance options during the previous dialogue – fixed;
• The path to OGL in EULA was incorrect – fixed;
• Under some circumstances, a dialogue with paralictor Aminos Renth could interrupt – fixed.

 

[Haplo]

Some weapons are good despite lowish enchantment. Like Grave Singer, Jinx, Hasty Eradicator, Battle-Forged and so on. And you can buff the enchantment with GMW eventually anyway - it just takes a lot longer for the spell to reach +5 now that you cannot stack both the weapon enchantment and spell buff.

 

[volklore]

Yeah I was asking because I distinctly remember some really good items with low +x enchantment. Generally speaking, what TTT ''nerfs'' gets counterbalanced by other tools it adds (like being able to accelerate hex prog with extra hex feat or the ''encouraging'' metamagic rods). Now I can use Cam as a fully-fledged hexer early on and during the whole game since I kinda want to run a mostly evul party, ember would spoil the mood(MC CE madness domain ecclesitheurge).

 

[Yosharian]

trying to melee it is just a big NOPE!

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Haplo I took down the Treant the same way I killed that uberdemon in the Drezen Citadel. By throwing every web and difficult terrain spell in existence at it, while I shot it death. I have 3 ray casters with lots of fire (MC, Ember, and Daeran), but the SR was tough to beat, even with greater spell penetration on all of my casters. I think I got a lucky Enervation off from a scroll, though I don't recall if that was the time I killed him. The whole endeavor was beseeching the mercy of the RNG gods. I should have just come back later.

 

[razvedchiki]

in the TTT mod you cant crit with mounted charge anymore?

Sure you can. It simply won't multiply the charge multipliers.
The multipliers will stack instead.
So if you do a Spirited Charge with a longspear for x3 damage and crit, you'll do x5 damage, not x9.

its better to use a high crit weapon for charging? like a fauchard or a scimitar.
i did some testing after spears were buffed, but the results where underwelming to say the least. a charge attack with a 13/1 cavalier/hunter did max 110 damage with a+2 longspear, i expected much more. i didnt specc for dmg though just a quick respec of my main char to check out mounted combat.

 

[Average Manatee]

Yeah, for experienced players I'd definately recommend Hard.

Unfair if you enjoy min-maxing, stacking buffs/debuffs and exploiting systems (like say, pulling enemies to the Guarded Hearth you've set earlier).

Mark of Justice and Guarded Hearth are basically an automatic difficulty level decrease for a lot of fights.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

i expected much more.

My two-hand fighter/cavalier critting the dragon, level 10ish:

Note that the game did not recognize the dragon's death here, it still kept harrassing me until I went to it's lair. Perfect example of why you don't throw monsters at the PCs unless you're willing to allow them to die. Players have a way of getting their way.

I don't think the Cavalier is worth it overall, it needs Ride By attack so it can charge every turn to maximize damage, but they didn't implement that feat. Too bad. Still fun enough.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Holy fuck is this place challenging.

Really illustrates why Owlcat is a bad developer.

So those Treants are CR 14. They have some pretty nasty attacks, but nothing that can't be handled with some planning and good builds. If the party reaches that location at level 10, that's an EL (Encounter level) +4 fight, which is supposed to be moderately challenging. But the player has Mythic levels, which balances things out.

But then the game throws two of them at you at once. When you add another monster of the same CR, that bumps up the EL by 2. An EL 16 fight at level 10 should only just barely be possible, and really should only be a boss encounter, not some random mobs on a map. But still, tough but doable fight, and Mythic levels again give you the edge.

BUT WAIT! They also throw a Spectre at you that is a level seventeen druid (which means ninth level spells). The kind of magic that Gary Gygax once envisioned being limited to only unique high level undead horrors such as the Lich Vecna. You're really not supposed to give PC levels to random monsters, the rules weren't designed for it, except for extremely rare mobs (there are a bunch of these things on the map!)

First off, it's a CR 17 fight from the class levels alone, which puts it at the extreme high end of challenge for a level 10 party. On top of that, you have two nasty Treants joining in, which conservatively bump it up to EL 19. But the extra Spectre levels are the icing on the turd cake. Generally adding class levels to a monster supersedes its CR, with a CR bonus from the type of monster. A big giant with high strength might get CR +1 or 2, a Spectre with all the undead immunities and bonuses should be +3 or 4. I am comfortable calling this thing a CR 20 monster, fought with multiple nasty minions, making this a EL 22+ fight.

That's not even supposed to be possible to win. For a level 10 party, fighting mobs with such a power difference is a game master fail. E.g., a group of level 1 PCs can never beat a level 10 dragon in a straight fight, no matter how 'gud' they 'git.'

To quote from the DMG (pg. 38):

"The table does not support XP for encounters eight or more Challenge Ratings higher than the character's level. If the party is taking on challenges that far above their level, something strange is going on"

Something strange, indeed.

Before anyone fires off a smug reply, I did beat that fight, so shut up, but the point is it shouldn't be. You obviously have to rest spam and buff like crazy to get through all of this stuff (and use Owlcat's extremely overpowered itemization), which is fine for some people but a playstyle I don't find particularly enjoyable. If Owlcat weren't interested in implementing actual Pathfinder/D&D, they should have used something else more suited to their goals.

 

[LannTheStupid]

Why are you writing about CR and party levels? What are you, a tabletopper?

Hint: it is a computer game. The game that is played on a computer, not at the table. Without a D/GM.

 

[Crichton]

BUT WAIT! They also throw a Spectre at you that is a level seventeen druid (which means ninth level spells). The kind of magic that Gary Gygax once envisioned being limited to only unique high level undead horrors such as the Lich Vecna. You're really not supposed to give PC levels to random monsters, the rules weren't designed for it, except for extremely rare mobs (there are a bunch of these things on the map!)

I had a major similar issue with the generic "lich" encounters in the DLC. They had no names, no minions,

They had no phylacteries.

it's bizarre how these developers can spend so much effort on rules minutiae without any actual understanding of the game. A lich should be a foe worthy of respect; not generic trash. It's worse than all those nameless "Jedi Masters" in the KotOR games.

 

[Roguey]

Before anyone fires off a smug reply, I did beat that fight, so shut up, but the point is it shouldn't be. You obviously have to rest spam and buff like crazy to get through all of this stuff (and use Owlcat's extremely overpowered itemization), which is fine for some people but a playstyle I don't find particularly enjoyable. If Owlcat weren't interested in implementing actual Pathfinder/D&D, they should have used something else more suited to their goals.

Despite being easily accessible, Wintersun is not an area you're supposed to tackle early on in chapter 3. You hold off on it until you've gained some levels.

Also powerbuilding is the whole point of Pathfinder, they used the right ruleset.

I had a major similar issue with the generic "lich" encounters in the DLC. They had no names, no minions,

They had no phylacteries.

The lich in chapter 5 has a phylacetery, it's just something that requires scripting. They can't support that for every lich encounter (all those liches in BG2 didn't have phylacteries either).

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Why are you writing about CR and party levels? What are you, a tabletopper?

From the kickstarter page (emphasis added):

As you may know, we at Owlcat Games have spent countless hours playing the Pathfinder tabletop RPG. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to bring this experience to the videogame format by creating a classic isometric party-based computer RPG called Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

In any case, the fundamentals of good encounter design are hardly unique to any game system. How did Troika manage to not put high-level undead in the Mine of Bessie Toone, if they did not have a tabletop ruleset to crib from? I suppose we'll never know for certain.

You hold off on it until you've gained some levels.

Sure, but I don't think it's possible to reach that area at the "right" level, which would be 16 according to the rules--you still have to do each area within a fairly narrow level range (it is more flexible than KM was). Part of the problem with Owlcat is they insist on not only putting high level mobs on the critical path, but largely prevent you from grinding or managing the difficulty any way beyond mega-buffing (I installed the buff bot mod and I was casting no less than 40 spells per encounter). Craziness.

Killing Firkraag right after escaping Chateau Irenicus was always a fun flex, but you can also hold off until your levels are doubled if you really have problems. No such luck in Owlcat games.

powerbuilding is the whole point of Pathfinder

Despite all the theorycrafting, most of the power of my characters comes from their items. In Kingmaker my paladin was downright pathetic until I acquired the Vanquisher axe, and then became my number one DPS. That's not optimization, it's Monty Haul.

 

[Roguey]

Sure, but I don't think it's possible to reach that area at the "right" level, which would be 16 according to the rules--you still have to do each area within a fairly narrow level range (it is more flexible than KM was). Part of the problem with Owlcat is they insist on not only putting high level mobs on the critical path, but largely prevent you from grinding or managing the difficulty any way beyond mega-buffing (I installed the buff bot mod and I was casting no less than 40 spells per encounter). Craziness.

Killing Firkraag right after escaping Chateau Irenicus was always a fun flex, but you can also hold off until your levels are doubled if you really have problems. No such luck in Owlcat games.

I went to Wintersun early and made it to the boss of that area no problem (but couldn't actually beat him until later). All the hardest encounters on that map are optional and I believe you can always come back to do them in chapter 5 if you truly can't get through them, except the ones tied to quests that have to be completed in chapter 3 anyway.

Despite all the theorycrafting, most of the power of my characters comes from their items. In Kingmaker my paladin was downright pathetic until I acquired the Vanquisher axe, and then became my number one DPS. That's not optimization, it's Monty Haul.

That's how most D&D 3e games go. Characters become superheroes, Gygaxians hate it.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

That's how most D&D 3e games go.

Its true that 3e is considered higher-powered than other editions, but Owlcat went above and beyond with this.

For example, the limit of most bonuses is +5 (rings, enhancement, armor, cloaks, etc.) but Owlcat has some of these reach +6, which are considered epic items restricted to post-20th level in 3.5. There are also far more combo items in Kingmaker, like the Ring of Ultimate Protection, which is actually four items combined. None of this is found in the core PF books.

This is the list of specific weapons from my copy of the Pathfinder Core rules:

I'd say most of the weapons are pretty tame. Sunblade is a +2 sword. The luckblade is just a fancy wand of wishes (which is pretty nerfed compared to older D&D). The holy avenger is also nerfed from its older incarnations. There's certainly no +15 greataxes or auto-trip fauchards in there, or any of the other crazy stuff from the Owlcat games. You can make a custom +5 sword of speed w/ 1d10 elemental damage, but that is a level 20 only item.

These are the stat boosting belts:

Bonus does not go over +6, that is the limit. The combo belts with multiple stats DO exist here, but in Kingmaker there are +8 belts, which are not part of the PF core ruleset and are restricted to 21+ in the 3.5 rules.

Owlcat took an admittedly high-powered system and said "hold my beer" and made everything even more stronk (and did it before epic levels where any sane DM would). Note that every table I ever played at refused to hand out treasure according the core rules, generally believing the vanilla progression to be too strong, and kept the game more restricted. I ran my games pretty much vanilla, and had overall very strong PCs as a result, and yet even I think Owlcat went too far. So congrats, they achieved a level of powergaming that an avowed powergamer balks at.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

But then the game throws two of them at you at once. When you add another monster of the same CR, that bumps up the EL by 2. An EL 16 fight at level 10 should only just barely be possible, and really should only be a boss encounter, not some random mobs on a map. But still, tough but doable fight, and Mythic levels again give you the edge.

tbf all of these including the druid after you mentioned are all optional encounters. The game has free roam and encounters like these can be done later in Chapter 3 when you get more levels. I know I did.

 

[ga♥]

Since when liches go around with their phylacteries why do you expect to find them when you kill them. This said DLC3 is pretty bad.

 

[LannTheStupid]

I wonder if I am the last who figured it out:

Pictures

Naturally, works for all the schools.

 

[Yosharian]

Game balance is not a major problem with Wrath IMO. It's a flawed design decision but it ended up ok. There are much bigger problems with the game.

 

[Haplo]

Holy fuck is this place challenging.

So those Treants are CR 14. They have some pretty nasty attacks, but nothing that can't be handled with some planning and good builds. If the party reaches that location at level 10, that's an EL (Encounter level) +4 fight, which is supposed to be moderately challenging. But the player has Mythic levels, which balances things out.

But then the game throws two of them at you at once. When you add another monster of the same CR, that bumps up the EL by 2. An EL 16 fight at level 10 should only just barely be possible, and really should only be a boss encounter, not some random mobs on a map. But still, tough but doable fight, and Mythic levels again give you the edge.

And yet the single Ancient Treant boss (with Babaus, but they also attack the treant) makes it look like a baby fight.

BUT WAIT! They also throw a Spectre at you that is a level seventeen druid (which means ninth level spells). The kind of magic that Gary Gygax once envisioned being limited to only unique high level undead horrors such as the Lich Vecna. You're really not supposed to give PC levels to random monsters, the rules weren't designed for it, except for extremely rare mobs (there are a bunch of these things on the map!)

First off, it's a CR 17 fight from the class levels alone, which puts it at the extreme high end of challenge for a level 10 party. On top of that, you have two nasty Treants joining in, which conservatively bump it up to EL 19. But the extra Spectre levels are the icing on the turd cake. Generally adding class levels to a monster supersedes its CR, with a CR bonus from the type of monster. A big giant with high strength might get CR +1 or 2, a Spectre with all the undead immunities and bonuses should be +3 or 4. I am comfortable calling this thing a CR 20 monster, fought with multiple nasty minions, making this a EL 22+ fight.

That's not even supposed to be possible to win. For a level 10 party, fighting mobs with such a power difference is a game master fail. E.g., a group of level 1 PCs can never beat a level 10 dragon in a straight fight, no matter how 'gud' they 'git.'

Cool. You bring up a 100% optional fight, with mobs not even appearing in the area untill you trigger their anger by stealing from a grave - after being very vocally and clearly warned not to do it.

Then you complain they somehow got mixed with regular mobs patrolling the area, which made the fight more difficult? Sorry, that's on you. You absolutely didn't have to wake the 7 Sarkorian druid specters. And if you insisted to do it (xp is admittedly more then good), you could have done it after a full mop-up of the entire map. Or better yet, come later for these fights.