Pathfinder Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Game of the Year Edition

[ArchAngel]

"Aging effects can be reversed by a Greater Restoration spell." But if you have one memorized, but don't have the diamonds, you're stuck. And the map provides you with 0, so far (I'm 4 chambers in). It's like monkeys designed this DLC. Monkeys that know how to code.

I'm starting to wonder: if I throw a banana at the screen, will the game's design suddenly improve?

Oh, and you wanna know who the MVP of this "amazing" island is? Fucking Lann. Zen Archers need no STR or AGI to shoot, baby. Lann just became, arguably, the best character in the game, just because of this.

Age only advances in combat. They're trying to tell you your fights are taking too long. Get everyone in on the fun!

At lvl 1 you don't have Hex. At lvl 2 I picked up Sleep Hex and now she does Hex and then Ice Ray. Later she is going to be my Ice nuker, going to take Winter Witch levels for more bonuses.
Bought 4th character after 1st voyage was done. Ecclesitheurge with Fire and Good domains (it works as it should in second game), this is going to be buffer and and fire nuker. I noticed permanent 10 HP bonus is not automatically given to characters that join the party afterwards so I guess it is important to fill 6 slots sooner than later.

Question for your masters of builds, how to do I give my finess Vivi dex bonus to damage? Just with Mythic levels or few levels of rogue?

Also in first voyage I found some fire thingy that is obviously some story/quest item but the Helmsman does not want to talk about it. What do I do with it?

Well yeah, that's the point. Base Witch *does* get the lvl one Hex, then another at 2 and four so you can have the Protective Luck, Evil Eye, Cackle package up by level four. Sleep doesn't do anything on made save and there's no way to boost the DC.

Evil Eye works for a round even on made save (no SR of course either) then you can keep it up with Cackle while also casting or adding a new Protective Luck each round.

How is ploinking for a few damage (that even gets eaten by Resists) better than that? I have trouble switching my Winter Witch away from Hexes and he's got 100 point Meta Snowballs now.

As to your other question, don't make a Finesse Vivi. STR-based FTW. A few levels of Rogue means you never get there on spells or Advanced Talents. If you want Finesse-based just play Rogue straight. That way your get Uncanny Dodges too.

Sleep has been MVP since I took it. Took care of first voyage boss as well. Also frost has been very useful vs high dr enemies on last island.
For 2nd hex I took Iceplant for bonus armor. Hexes are not better than spells above early game except maybe specific enemies.

 

[Yosharian]

Yet another bug, this time it's one in our favour:

Old Grimoire

This old grimoire grants its owner 3 slots for 1 level spells, 2 slots for 2 level spells, and 2 slots for 3 level spells for the wearer's spellcasting class with the highest caster level.

This item claims to only boost slots for your highest caster level class, but I tested it with a character that had CL 7 Magus spells and CL 6 Alchemist spells and both spellbooks received extra slots.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I finally finished the first set of the island crawls. The final boss dropped a pretty neat item but then the whole thing started over and I lost the item. Will the next cycle be longer? Or is this item meant for parties who are doing the DLC during the main campaign?

 

[Stoned Ape]

I finally finished the first set of the island crawls. The final boss dropped a pretty neat item but then the whole thing started over and I lost the item. Will the next cycle be longer? Or is this item meant for parties who are doing the DLC during the main campaign?

About that item...

You can buy it during your second playthrough from the talking chest near the resting spot on the ship (200000 gold. I bought it around the time I got Mythic 3 on my second run).

I think that item is also used as the reward for the campaign-integrated part of the DLC.

The second playthrough is no longer, but the difficulty is scaled up quite a bit (especially for the bosses). There is also a tricky Pirate Treasure quest you can try during the second run where you have to collect map pieces from pirate bases.

There are a a few other excellent treasures you can find (I've seen a robe and glasses set, and a hand mirror so far. The mirror is particularly awesome)

 

[Desiderius]

"Aging effects can be reversed by a Greater Restoration spell." But if you have one memorized, but don't have the diamonds, you're stuck. And the map provides you with 0, so far (I'm 4 chambers in). It's like monkeys designed this DLC. Monkeys that know how to code.

I'm starting to wonder: if I throw a banana at the screen, will the game's design suddenly improve?

Oh, and you wanna know who the MVP of this "amazing" island is? Fucking Lann. Zen Archers need no STR or AGI to shoot, baby. Lann just became, arguably, the best character in the game, just because of this.

Age only advances in combat. They're trying to tell you your fights are taking too long. Get everyone in on the fun!

At lvl 1 you don't have Hex. At lvl 2 I picked up Sleep Hex and now she does Hex and then Ice Ray. Later she is going to be my Ice nuker, going to take Winter Witch levels for more bonuses.
Bought 4th character after 1st voyage was done. Ecclesitheurge with Fire and Good domains (it works as it should in second game), this is going to be buffer and and fire nuker. I noticed permanent 10 HP bonus is not automatically given to characters that join the party afterwards so I guess it is important to fill 6 slots sooner than later.

Question for your masters of builds, how to do I give my finess Vivi dex bonus to damage? Just with Mythic levels or few levels of rogue?

Also in first voyage I found some fire thingy that is obviously some story/quest item but the Helmsman does not want to talk about it. What do I do with it?

Well yeah, that's the point. Base Witch *does* get the lvl one Hex, then another at 2 and four so you can have the Protective Luck, Evil Eye, Cackle package up by level four. Sleep doesn't do anything on made save and there's no way to boost the DC.

Evil Eye works for a round even on made save (no SR of course either) then you can keep it up with Cackle while also casting or adding a new Protective Luck each round.

How is ploinking for a few damage (that even gets eaten by Resists) better than that? I have trouble switching my Winter Witch away from Hexes and he's got 100 point Meta Snowballs now.

As to your other question, don't make a Finesse Vivi. STR-based FTW. A few levels of Rogue means you never get there on spells or Advanced Talents. If you want Finesse-based just play Rogue straight. That way your get Uncanny Dodges too.

Sleep has been MVP since I took it. Took care of first voyage boss as well. Also frost has been very useful vs high dr enemies on last island.
For 2nd hex I took Iceplant for bonus armor. Hexes are not better than spells above early game except maybe specific enemies.

How is Sleep MVP with no way to buff DC? Hexes aren’t better than spells unless you’re using them to land spells for the other five characters (Evil Eye for -4 Saves at lvl 8). In any event you’re very rest-restricted so don’t have enough spell slots to fill action econ, (especially if you take Favorite Meta Mythic over Abundant, which the great Hexes give you enough Action Econ to do. Base Witch is non-spontaneous so good with Meta).

The question is whether to fill the rest with the good Hexes or the with the Ray. How much damage was it doing? And Iceplant? When are you even getting attacked, and how do you have enough buffs to make Witch AC matter in the first place? Mine litterally never got attacked. Iceplant is good on Cam because she’s melee.

 

[ArchAngel]

"Aging effects can be reversed by a Greater Restoration spell." But if you have one memorized, but don't have the diamonds, you're stuck. And the map provides you with 0, so far (I'm 4 chambers in). It's like monkeys designed this DLC. Monkeys that know how to code.

I'm starting to wonder: if I throw a banana at the screen, will the game's design suddenly improve?

Oh, and you wanna know who the MVP of this "amazing" island is? Fucking Lann. Zen Archers need no STR or AGI to shoot, baby. Lann just became, arguably, the best character in the game, just because of this.

Age only advances in combat. They're trying to tell you your fights are taking too long. Get everyone in on the fun!

At lvl 1 you don't have Hex. At lvl 2 I picked up Sleep Hex and now she does Hex and then Ice Ray. Later she is going to be my Ice nuker, going to take Winter Witch levels for more bonuses.
Bought 4th character after 1st voyage was done. Ecclesitheurge with Fire and Good domains (it works as it should in second game), this is going to be buffer and and fire nuker. I noticed permanent 10 HP bonus is not automatically given to characters that join the party afterwards so I guess it is important to fill 6 slots sooner than later.

Question for your masters of builds, how to do I give my finess Vivi dex bonus to damage? Just with Mythic levels or few levels of rogue?

Also in first voyage I found some fire thingy that is obviously some story/quest item but the Helmsman does not want to talk about it. What do I do with it?

Well yeah, that's the point. Base Witch *does* get the lvl one Hex, then another at 2 and four so you can have the Protective Luck, Evil Eye, Cackle package up by level four. Sleep doesn't do anything on made save and there's no way to boost the DC.

Evil Eye works for a round even on made save (no SR of course either) then you can keep it up with Cackle while also casting or adding a new Protective Luck each round.

How is ploinking for a few damage (that even gets eaten by Resists) better than that? I have trouble switching my Winter Witch away from Hexes and he's got 100 point Meta Snowballs now.

As to your other question, don't make a Finesse Vivi. STR-based FTW. A few levels of Rogue means you never get there on spells or Advanced Talents. If you want Finesse-based just play Rogue straight. That way your get Uncanny Dodges too.

Sleep has been MVP since I took it. Took care of first voyage boss as well. Also frost has been very useful vs high dr enemies on last island.
For 2nd hex I took Iceplant for bonus armor. Hexes are not better than spells above early game except maybe specific enemies.

How is Sleep MVP with no way to buff DC? Hexes aren’t better than spells unless you’re using them to land spells for the other five characters (Evil Eye for -4 Saves at lvl 8). In any event you’re very rest-restricted so don’t have enough spell slots to fill action econ, (especially if you take Favorite Meta Mythic over Abundant, which the great Hexes give you enough Action Econ to do. Base Witch is non-spontaneous so good with Meta).

The question is whether to fill the rest with the good Hexes or the with the Ray. How much damage was it doing? And Iceplant? When are you even getting attacked, and how do you have enough buffs to make Witch AC matter in the first place? Mine litterally never got attacked. Iceplant is good on Cam because she’s melee.

It was mvp because low level enemies have crap will save and if they fail they are dead. Evil eye and stuff is just a mild debuff and does not work vs undead like sleep. Protective hex is cool but not needed early for this dlc as enemies are not that strong with attacks.
As for Iceplant, enemies kept provoking AoE to attack my witch and there is no other way early to buff AC

 

[The_Mask]

Age only advances in combat.

I'm playing the main campaign. It advances out of combat as well.

How do you not have diamonds? It sounds like you brought your main story party there, I always had a lot if components with that party with me.

I never said I didn't. I do. I just said that the information is superfluous in the case someone *does* have the spell, but not the components. Which is a thing that you should be thinking of as an RPG designer.

 

[Desiderius]

Greater Resto is a big investment in any case - those are your best slots. The description says in combat, so if it’s out of combat it’s a bug. A big one.

 

[Stoned Ape]

Here are screenshots of the unique items I've found so far...

There is at least one more I've not found yet that completes the set with the mirror.

 

[The_Mask]

I think this might be a reference to Protoss Archons/ Enigma from Dota2/ Voidwalkers from WarCraft, but I can't be sure. Whatever it is, it's cute... because I like the character a lot. Used to have it as my avatar here on The Codex, too.

(This one is a bit of a spoiler. Click at the risk of going blind.)

 

[InD_ImaginE]

So consensus, is the roguelike mode actually good? Worth playing on its own?

 

[Desiderius]

There’s some nice twists in the design mixed in with major facepalm. If they’ve got the main designers attention now (getting a break from Rogue Trader?) then maybe they get those ironed out for Enhanced/second DLC Season.

There’s enough there with Tailwinds along with Tweaks to make it interesting. Hardest thing is getting Knowledge World/Religion high enough to rest reliably lol.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

There’s enough there with Tailwinds along with Tweaks

What is Tailwinds? Another mod? Tweaks is Tabletop Tweaks?

 

[Desiderius]

Tailwinds are global buildarounds.

Currently trying to get there with the Haplo one (Exotics get bigger dice).

 

[Stoned Ape]

There’s enough there with Tailwinds along with Tweaks

What is Tailwinds? Another mod? Tweaks is Tabletop Tweaks?

Once you defeat the final boss for the first time, your character retires and you are asked to make a new one.

This character benefits from a 'Tailwind' which grants some kind of bonus to his party (eg lead blades for all exotic weapons, oracles, clerics, warpriests, and inquisitors getting automatic empower spell, all ranged touch attacks critting on 17+, etc.)

To balance this, the 'end of level' bosses are boosted up.

 

[Stoned Ape]

Just finished beating the big boss with my angel oracle (2nd run now). I completed the pirate treasure map and instead of retiring I must continue the voyage. The Treasure Island is a 3 skull difficulty location right before the last island of the sequence. I will be able to grab Mythic Rank 4 before getting there.

I don't know if the voyage will continue after that or not...

 

[Desiderius]

It’s not actual Lead Blades tho. Stacks with Lead Blades.

 

[Stoned Ape]

Desiderius
Just wanted to mention that Cult Leader makes an excellent scout/archer: short-term elemental boost for Barrage access, access to greater weapon focus, weapon damage scaling with level, sneak attack, a couple of bonus feats, hide in plain sight (with a stealth bonus), access to level 6 cleric spells, and decent skill points. It's just a shame that blessings are pretty poor, especially compared to how great cleric domains are.

Still, it's been my favourite class this run (just edging out the Sanctified Slayer. It has been very tough to pick between the two; Bane and Studied Target did some really great work against the end boss, but I think the Cult Leader was better throughout the expedition).

 

[Stoned Ape]

Just cleared the Pirates' Secret Village. It was pretty tough going.

The pirates get a buff which carries across all six of their maps called 'The Black Spot of Besmara.' For every five pirates you kill, the others all get +1 to hit and damage which stacks up to +25. There are probably around 25-35 pirates on each map, so after killing a couple of villages the rest start with an already impressive buff which maxes out around the end of village 4.

I found the optimal tactic on the later pirate maps to be sneaking up and ambushing the groups of 5-6 pirates in turn-based mode and trying to kill them before they could get any actions, otherwise even the archers were capable of critting for around 200 damage and getting 4 shots each.

Overall, it was a fun side quest with a useful unique reward at the end of it.

The Pirates' Treasure!

And some other decent gear, mostly +3/+4 stuff which is relatively strong for this DLC.

 

[ArchAngel]

WTF is this!! Lvl 4 area, 1 skull. Wild Magic Zone. I botched a spell and it summons this guy hostile! Fuck you devs. I said I would play full ironman but this is just bullshit.

 

[Desiderius]

Ironman isn’t for first playthroughs. I wiped three times in the first expedition. It’s a Roguelike.

 

[Desiderius]

Just cleared the Pirates' Secret Village. It was pretty tough going.

The pirates get a buff which carries across all six of their maps called 'The Black Spot of Besmara.' For every five pirates you kill, the others all get +1 to hit and damage which stacks up to +25. There are probably around 25-35 pirates on each map, so after killing a couple of villages the rest start with an already impressive buff which maxes out around the end of village 4.

I found the optimal tactic on the later pirate maps to be sneaking up and ambushing the groups of 5-6 pirates in turn-based mode and trying to kill them before they could get any actions, otherwise even the archers were capable of critting for around 200 damage and getting 4 shots each.

Overall, it was a fun side quest with a useful unique reward at the end of it.

The Pirates' Treasure!

And some other decent gear, mostly +3/+4 stuff which is relatively strong for this DLC.

The B-team devs don’t understand how bonus types work. They make everything Morale and then they randomly stack.

 

[ArchAngel]

Ironman isn’t for first playthroughs. I wiped three times in the first expedition. It’s a Roguelike.

Except for this shit it is going well. That last island was irritating because in addition to not being able to cast spells it also had some fiendish huge earth elementals that are also immune to sneak attacks. Luckily I decided to make my 5th character Elemental Rampager Druid, she carried the party in those fights hard while paladin tanked.

 

[ArchAngel]

So far my party is:
Elemental Witch Human, focus on cold, going Winter Witch doing buffs + cold spells
Asimar Hospitaler (Paladin) doing "sword and board" + took horse at lvl 5
Halfling finess melee Vivisectionist
Human Ecclesitheurge (Cleric) with Fire and Good domains, doing buffs and fire spells. This guy was pure gold so far with no charges buff that gives +2 sacred bonus to everything.
Dwarf Elemental Rampager (druid) melee dps while shapeshifted into smilodon.


I am taking suggestions for 6th character. I was thinking going that Thunder Bard - buffs (good hope+haste) and archer/Thunder song but not sure. Does Vivi get Haste?

 

[Stoned Ape]

Vivi does get haste.

Bard is generally a solid choice for a force multiplier.

If you wanted something a bit different you could go for some type of Barbarian (or a Primalist Bloodrager) with reckless stance and inspire ferocity for a +AB (but -AC) aura.

A Freebooter Ranger is also an excellent choice with two excellent infinite use buffs. Probably best built as an archer so you free up their move action as much as possible to spam the buffs as needed.