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

[FriendlyMerchant]

I got fed up and cheated my way through the gray garrison fight. It's the most bugged encounter I've ever suffered through in a game. Basically no spells worked. And that's a big problem, since it seems like the whole fight is balanced around the player and their companions being super buffed, especially with their spells (spell DC is 66 for the combat).

That's how high level 3.5 combat works, it's nothing but big numbers on everything so you have to buff up before combat to make sure your numbers are bigger. It's even worse in pathfinder 1e since it doubled down on that aspect of D&D.

I'm going to assume it's the mods I have installed, because there's no way that the big story fight for a chapter could be this bugged.

It's not a mod unfortunately.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

So are most of the bugs resolved now? Does mounted combat actually work? Is the correct spell DC used now? Does the crusader mode damage upgrade building actually add 10% damage rather than set it to 10% damage?

Or, maybe a better question, are there still any big bugs I should be aware of while making decisions about my build/companions etc?

 

[The_Mask]

So are most of the bugs resolved now? Does mounted combat actually work? Is the correct spell DC used now? Does the crusader mode damage upgrade building actually add 10% damage rather than set it to 10% damage?

Or, maybe a better question, are there still any big bugs I should be aware of while making decisions about my build/companions etc?

1. Most bugs are resolved, yes. I'm playing my Angel now, and there are very few issues, as far as I can tell.
2. Mounted combat seems to work as intended, yes. But there are numerous visual bugs for the rider, especially if they're 1 size smaller than they ought to be. This is usually fixed by a reload, and shouldn't be an issue, albeit it *is* a bit immersion breaking.
3. I'm not really paying attention to my spell casters much, because I'm running the LN, LG, NG companions, which means I have Seelah, Sosiel, Ember and Lann. And planning to get the Queen. But as far as I can tell, Divine spellcasters work as intended. Mostly. There are *some* buffs that need to go through a char's magic immunity, but... it's fine.
4. Crusade stuff is superfluous. Just set it on easiest, and enjoy the HoMM-lite. There's not achievement/reason to get yourself worked up about it. Really.

The last one I don't know. I wouldn't suggest gimmicky stuff with any of the new classes. I would suggest simple stuff, for your first playthrough. But what I do know is that everything that was in P:K works well.

 

[Stoned Ape]

I'd avoid taking cavalier beyond a few levels as a dip; they have a problem with one of their higher-level abilities.

Incense Synthesizer seems to be totally broken.

There's probably a bunch of other small problems with other archetypes, too.

Mounted combat is usually fine. I just played a run with two mounted characters and apart from them having a few issues with opening chests and picking up items there's not much that's broken with them.

 

[Desiderius]

So, I got this game after seeing the codex speak so highly of it in spite of the woke content. I figured it had to be pretty damn good to get people to look past the in your face SJW stuff.

So far I'm enjoying it, playing on core, it's pretty hard. Well... hard in places. Swingy really. I saw people had trouble with the tavern defense, I had no trouble with it. But then random stuff in the town square is just kicking my ass. I foolishly finished some summoning ritual and now there's some level 9 demon (Vrook or something?) just kicking my ass.

To touch on the woke stuff, some other posters put it well, since wokesters like to shove their stuff in your face, you get suspicious and then stuff you wouldn't bat an eye at starts looking suspicious. I think all the various RPGs I've played feature some black characters in a fantasy europe setting, and I never thought much of it either way. But Seelah is obnoxious. And it's not because she's black. It's not because her VA is black. It's because her VA talks like a modern american black woman who wants to make absolutely sure you know she's black. It'd be like if there was a character with a pronounced new york accent, it stands out and is obnoxious. But of course, if a character had an obnoxious new york accent you'd be allowed to complain about it in polite company...

The lesbian couple is another thing that's pretty much... who cares, its been done. But the way it's so casually brought up "My wife" as if, of course, women are married to women all the time in fantasy medieval europe... it's just a little odd. Again, no big deal, but it puts you on your guard for more SJW stuff. Which apparently there is.

So I'm hoping the notion that it's all frontloaded for journos is true, although that's hardly the only flaw with the writing. Just overly verbose, I like to read but I find myself skimming constantly.

I am glad for the turn based mode. Helps a lot in the tougher fights, and also helps you understand just what the hell is going on sometimes. Also really glad I waited a year, some of the bugs at release would have probably ruined the game for me.

I'm playing with a chaotic neutral greataxe using dwarf fighter. Probably not the optimal choice but it's fun. My party is Lann, Seelah, thief guy, autistic girl, and Ember. The other witch just seemed redundant.

I cannot get past my need to sell scrolls and potions. Using them in fights feels like throwing money at the enemies. Probably will need to get over that lol.

Dwarf is pretty weak relatively speaking but race doesn't have that much impact on the game, only minor bonuses really.

Greataxe is one of the best weapon types due to Grave Singer. Owlcat has a fucking hard-on for greataxes.

Fighter, specifically Mutation Warrior, is one of the best classes for simple builds that deal damage. Without mods, they aren't particularly good AC tanks. Basic Fighter is just 'ok'.

With respect to companions I have heard that Regill is one of the best, so you should try to use him. If you're willing to use the respec mod you can get a lot more out of companions.

You don’t get Greater Mutation until lvl 12. Straight Fighter is as good if not better so you can move in Heavy and get better Stealth-Athletics checks. Speed determines Charge radius and decent Stealth lets you get in position. “Fighter is ok” takes aren’t taking into account the Advanced Weapon Training Feats (Duelist Gloves bonus also boosts Trained Initiative and Fighter’s Reflexes and Fighter’s Tactics is great with all the bonus Combat Feats).

With Trained + Improved Initiative to avoid flat-footed (Armor Training lets you get big DEX bonus even on Heavy) and first mover advantage hitting as hard as Fighter does it *is* in fact a particularly good AC tank, mostly because calculations involving your AC will be relatively rare on your combat log.

You don’t need respec mod to make companions relevant. 90% of people who use it make them worse by trying to shoehorn them into their favorite 3.5 builds.

The downside of Dorf is that CON doesn’t impact any skills or get used as a main stat outside of Kineticist. So Dorf Kinnie can be decent (preferably melee) or anything fighting Giants or needing extra high (+4) saves.

 

[Haplo]

Mounted combat is mostly fine. I've mostly just played mounted characters so far

 

[Desiderius]

I'd avoid taking cavalier beyond a few levels as a dip; they have a problem with one of their higher-level abilities.

Incense Synthesizer seems to be totally broken.

There's probably a bunch of other small problems with other archetypes, too.

Mounted combat is usually fine. I just played a run with two mounted characters and apart from them having a few issues with opening chests and picking up items there's not much that's broken with them.

Standard Bearer doesn’t get the broken ability (it has an AoE damage/HP buff instead) and the always on Morale boost is a good one in a low rest environment. Stacks with Bless. Nice to be able to pick up at lvl five to get the late Mount.

Cav Challenges (and the associated buffs you get from the Order you choose) scale with class level so again kind of shooting yourself in the foot to start over at lvl one in a different class, plus the high level Cav/Order abilities can be pretty good to unlock.

 

[Yosharian]

I'd avoid taking cavalier beyond a few levels as a dip; they have a problem with one of their higher-level abilities.

Just use Toy Box to remove it

 

[Stoned Ape]

The only problem with building fighter for AC these days is the fact they've fixed Magical Vestment so it doesn't stack on top of armor/shield enhancement bonus anymore.

Without it, armored AC is, at best, only going to stop a couple of iterative attacks against any tougher foe you meet, particularly if playing on a higher difficulty.

It's far more effective to build to inflict maximum possible damage during the surprise round and try to kill anything nasty before it kills you.

Getting the +Initiative Mythic Ability on a mercenary really helps to get early actions in the following round to finish off anything that survives the surprize blitz.

 

[Desiderius]

The only problem with building fighter for AC these days is the fact they've fixed Magical Vestment so it doesn't stack on top of armor/shield enhancement bonus anymore.

Without it, armored AC is, at best, only going to stop a couple of iterative attacks against any tougher foe you meet, particularly if playing on a higher difficulty.

It's far more effective to build to inflict maximum possible damage during the surprise round and try to kill anything nasty before it kills you.

Getting the +Initiative Mythic Ability on a mercenary really helps to get early actions in the following round to finish off anything that survives the surprize blitz.

Yes, that’s what I just said. And base Fighter is better at that than Mutation for the reasons I explained. That said, even without Vestment you should have the highest always on AC in your party, which is important in a low rest environment.

Main thing AC is for is avoiding attacks from regular mobs/adds and that’s doable for conventionally armored Fighter.

 

[ArchAngel]

I got my 6th character yesterday and I made it into Elf Freebooter Archer. I guess Thunder Bard will be for next run. Buff from Freebooter is nice but his damage atm is kind of bad vs enemies with DR. I need to get more levels to get that perk that makes DR only work vs first attack. My mounted paladin using battleaxe in two hands and using power attack is main damage dealer.

I got my first Mythic levels as well and my Winter Witch now ignores cold resistance and My fire priest now ignores fire resistance. Both are now decent damage dealers.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Played a bit more, characters are still level 4. Beat the vrok encounter in the town square, it was tough but Lann with the talking weapon turned longbow just kills everything. I think he got 2 big crits in one round which was huge for taking out its 128 hps. Damn though, tough fight there.

Been exploring the town square post tavern defense, hopefully I didn't miss out on anything too good not finishing it before that. The crazy lawful dude killed that other dude, and I killed him so... probably not ideal but oh well. Got a couple decent items at least.

Zombies are kind of a joke... but those shadows aren't. Draining 5 str a hit, damn that's rough. Lann the archer bro killed them for me though. Same with shadow demon. The rest of the party is just there to support Lann at this point.

My party composition has an obvious flaw that's showing up now with the stat draining and diseases. I've got 3 arcane casters and 0 divine casters, and it would be nice to be able to cast restoration. I guess I should swap out Nenia for the clearly not at all evil elf lady? She's not adding much right now honestly. Ember just tries (and mostly succeeds at) slumbering everything, which is really handy, but she also gets heals which is really nice, and a lot of uses a day. Rogue boy does some nice stabbings. My MC honestly is one of my least useful, but he tanks ok and hits pretty hard once a round. Getting another attack will be very handy there. Seelah is also decent for the tanking and putting out minor but consistent damage. I have her using a shield and longsword, and being able to heal herself as a swift action once a turn really helps in the tanking department. Lann is the star of the show, everyone else doing one attack a turn and he's busting out 2 or 3 with big damage from anywhere he damn well pleases.

After playing a bit more I have an observation about Seelah. Most of her voice lines are actually fine. It's just a few where the "american southern black" accent comes out. Especially the "United we stand" line or whatever, she really hits the accent hard on that one. But of course the ones that are jarring are the ones you remember most strongly, so we end up with "paladindu". I feel like a bit of direction for the VA could have gone a long way there. This game would have benefited in general from an editor who just cut out half the written text and voiced lines lol.

 

[ArchAngel]

Played a bit more, characters are still level 4. Beat the vrok encounter in the town square, it was tough but Lann with the talking weapon turned longbow just kills everything. I think he got 2 big crits in one round which was huge for taking out its 128 hps. Damn though, tough fight there.

Been exploring the town square post tavern defense, hopefully I didn't miss out on anything too good not finishing it before that. The crazy lawful dude killed that other dude, and I killed him so... probably not ideal but oh well. Got a couple decent items at least.

Zombies are kind of a joke... but those shadows aren't. Draining 5 str a hit, damn that's rough. Lann the archer bro killed them for me though. Same with shadow demon. The rest of the party is just there to support Lann at this point.

My party composition has an obvious flaw that's showing up now with the stat draining and diseases. I've got 3 arcane casters and 0 divine casters, and it would be nice to be able to cast restoration. I guess I should swap out Nenia for the clearly not at all evil elf lady? She's not adding much right now honestly. Ember just tries (and mostly succeeds at) slumbering everything, which is really handy, but she also gets heals which is really nice, and a lot of uses a day. Rogue boy does some nice stabbings. My MC honestly is one of my least useful, but he tanks ok and hits pretty hard once a round. Getting another attack will be very handy there. Seelah is also decent for the tanking and putting out minor but consistent damage. I have her using a shield and longsword, and being able to heal herself as a swift action once a turn really helps in the tanking department. Lann is the star of the show, everyone else doing one attack a turn and he's busting out 2 or 3 with big damage from anywhere he damn well pleases.

After playing a bit more I have an observation about Seelah. Most of her voice lines are actually fine. It's just a few where the "american southern black" accent comes out. Especially the "United we stand" line or whatever, she really hits the accent hard on that one. But of course the ones that are jarring are the ones you remember most strongly, so we end up with "paladindu". I feel like a bit of direction for the VA could have gone a long way there. This game would have benefited in general from an editor who just cut out half the written text and voiced lines lol.

Didn't you grab asimar oracle yet?
And yea, you don't need Ember and Nenio in same party atm. But later once you get some levels and gear they can do some serious damage output. And Lann is cool but since you didn't choose to take spider girl you missed out on best DPS character in the game.

 

[Desiderius]

I got my 6th character yesterday and I made it into Elf Freebooter Archer. I guess Thunder Bard will be for next run. Buff from Freebooter is nice but his damage atm is kind of bad vs enemies with DR. I need to get more levels to get that perk that makes DR only work vs first attack. My mounted paladin using battleaxe in two hands and using power attack is main damage dealer.

Did they fix Magic Weapon, Greater? It stacked (and bypassed DR) in Wrath. They also give you a ton of DR bypass ammo (or are you talking about DR/- ?). Thunderbard is bad - you can just cast the spell and get relevant DC on it. Need those Performance rounds for the songs. Dirge looks pretty all around dominant if you want a Bard.

You get your ranged damage up on Ranger/Hunter by combining Aspect of Falcon with enlarging effects and Hurricane Bow. Then on tough fights Vitals + Instant Enemy (Swift works well with Booter's Move Action Bane) and Holy/Axiomatic if you can find them (Holy Lance/Instrument of Freedom etc..). Good target for a Bless Weapon as well. Tabletop Tweaks has WIS to AB from Erastil so you just build it STR/WIS as well.

 

[Desiderius]

Played a bit more, characters are still level 4. Beat the vrok encounter in the town square, it was tough but Lann with the talking weapon turned longbow just kills everything. I think he got 2 big crits in one round which was huge for taking out its 128 hps. Damn though, tough fight there.

Been exploring the town square post tavern defense, hopefully I didn't miss out on anything too good not finishing it before that. The crazy lawful dude killed that other dude, and I killed him so... probably not ideal but oh well. Got a couple decent items at least.

Zombies are kind of a joke... but those shadows aren't. Draining 5 str a hit, damn that's rough. Lann the archer bro killed them for me though. Same with shadow demon. The rest of the party is just there to support Lann at this point.

My party composition has an obvious flaw that's showing up now with the stat draining and diseases. I've got 3 arcane casters and 0 divine casters, and it would be nice to be able to cast restoration. I guess I should swap out Nenia for the clearly not at all evil elf lady? She's not adding much right now honestly. Ember just tries (and mostly succeeds at) slumbering everything, which is really handy, but she also gets heals which is really nice, and a lot of uses a day. Rogue boy does some nice stabbings. My MC honestly is one of my least useful, but he tanks ok and hits pretty hard once a round. Getting another attack will be very handy there. Seelah is also decent for the tanking and putting out minor but consistent damage. I have her using a shield and longsword, and being able to heal herself as a swift action once a turn really helps in the tanking department. Lann is the star of the show, everyone else doing one attack a turn and he's busting out 2 or 3 with big damage from anywhere he damn well pleases.

After playing a bit more I have an observation about Seelah. Most of her voice lines are actually fine. It's just a few where the "american southern black" accent comes out. Especially the "United we stand" line or whatever, she really hits the accent hard on that one. But of course the ones that are jarring are the ones you remember most strongly, so we end up with "paladindu". I feel like a bit of direction for the VA could have gone a long way there. This game would have benefited in general from an editor who just cut out half the written text and voiced lines lol.

It's not a set party game. Unlike Baldur's Gate, et all, the companions you're not using keep getting experience along with those you are. You can swap in and out at any time and it's a good idea to figure out which one lines up well against each foe. You can even scout out locations then bring back the best companions for the job. The longer you take the better your army gets.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Played a bit more, characters are still level 4. Beat the vrok encounter in the town square, it was tough but Lann with the talking weapon turned longbow just kills everything. I think he got 2 big crits in one round which was huge for taking out its 128 hps. Damn though, tough fight there.

Been exploring the town square post tavern defense, hopefully I didn't miss out on anything too good not finishing it before that. The crazy lawful dude killed that other dude, and I killed him so... probably not ideal but oh well. Got a couple decent items at least.

Zombies are kind of a joke... but those shadows aren't. Draining 5 str a hit, damn that's rough. Lann the archer bro killed them for me though. Same with shadow demon. The rest of the party is just there to support Lann at this point.

My party composition has an obvious flaw that's showing up now with the stat draining and diseases. I've got 3 arcane casters and 0 divine casters, and it would be nice to be able to cast restoration. I guess I should swap out Nenia for the clearly not at all evil elf lady? She's not adding much right now honestly. Ember just tries (and mostly succeeds at) slumbering everything, which is really handy, but she also gets heals which is really nice, and a lot of uses a day. Rogue boy does some nice stabbings. My MC honestly is one of my least useful, but he tanks ok and hits pretty hard once a round. Getting another attack will be very handy there. Seelah is also decent for the tanking and putting out minor but consistent damage. I have her using a shield and longsword, and being able to heal herself as a swift action once a turn really helps in the tanking department. Lann is the star of the show, everyone else doing one attack a turn and he's busting out 2 or 3 with big damage from anywhere he damn well pleases.

After playing a bit more I have an observation about Seelah. Most of her voice lines are actually fine. It's just a few where the "american southern black" accent comes out. Especially the "United we stand" line or whatever, she really hits the accent hard on that one. But of course the ones that are jarring are the ones you remember most strongly, so we end up with "paladindu". I feel like a bit of direction for the VA could have gone a long way there. This game would have benefited in general from an editor who just cut out half the written text and voiced lines lol.

Didn't you grab asimar oracle yet?
And yea, you don't need Ember and Nenio in same party atm. But later once you get some levels and gear they can do some serious damage output. And Lann is cool but since you didn't choose to take spider girl you missed out on best DPS character in the game.

Spider girl needs to die. F that B. If anyone's gonna do the betraying around here, it's gonna be ME! At least Yoshimo had an excuse.

 

[ArchAngel]

I got my 6th character yesterday and I made it into Elf Freebooter Archer. I guess Thunder Bard will be for next run. Buff from Freebooter is nice but his damage atm is kind of bad vs enemies with DR. I need to get more levels to get that perk that makes DR only work vs first attack. My mounted paladin using battleaxe in two hands and using power attack is main damage dealer.

Did they fix Magic Weapon, Greater? It stacked (and bypassed DR) in Wrath. They also give you a ton of DR bypass ammo (or are you talking about DR/- ?). Thunderbard is bad - you can just cast the spell and get relevant DC on it. Need those Performance rounds for the songs. Dirge looks pretty all around dominant if you want a Bard.

You get your ranged damage up on Ranger/Hunter by combining Aspect of Falcon with enlarging effects and Hurricane Bow. Then on tough fights Vitals + Instant Enemy (Swift works well with Booter's Move Action Bane) and Holy/Axiomatic if you can find them (Holy Lance/Instrument of Freedom etc..). Good target for a Bless Weapon as well.

It was Elementals with set DR. As for Thunder, I played such bard in Kingmaker and it ruled and destroyed everyone. I went full Charisma and took a lot of Extra Bard song feats and just nuked everyone. Between sonic damage and stun no enemy in the game had a way to resist.

 

[Desiderius]

That elusive Mythic Bard Song DC I must have missed. Doesn't the Blast cancel your Song? You know you can just cast the (second level) spell, right? Clerics get it too, and they want Evo Focus for Archon's already.

Elementals are not Mind/Fear Immune so usually exploit that and less worried about the DR.

Also opposite element

 

[Takamori]

After having my game bricked a year ago, I decided to return. Started a new game, doing a melee cleric with no archetype playing on Core.
Guess its just buffing the everliving shit out of me and get Angel as mythic path?

 

[ArchAngel]

That elusive Mythic Bard Song DC I must have missed. Doesn't the Blast cancel your Song? You know you can just cast the (second level) spell, right? Clerics get it too, and they want Evo Focus for Archon's already.

Elementals are not Mind/Fear Immune so usually exploit that and less worried about the DR.

Also opposite element

View attachment 27928

No, I took that feat that makes songs linger. So you can have song and Blast at same time. And why would I want pathetic lvl 2 spell when I can get a much stronger one that has autoscaling DC and does a nice amount of sonic damage that barely anyone has resistance against AND I think it ignores SR. And while you cannot scale DC with feats you don't need to because stun is just a bonus to sonic damage that they do not resist.

 

[ArchAngel]

That elusive Mythic Bard Song DC I must have missed. Doesn't the Blast cancel your Song? You know you can just cast the (second level) spell, right? Clerics get it too, and they want Evo Focus for Archon's already.

Elementals are not Mind/Fear Immune so usually exploit that and less worried about the DR.

Also opposite element

View attachment 27928

I didn't know your Freebooter ranger can fire cold rays.. so cool.

Spoiler

 

[Desiderius]

That elusive Mythic Bard Song DC I must have missed. Doesn't the Blast cancel your Song? You know you can just cast the (second level) spell, right? Clerics get it too, and they want Evo Focus for Archon's already.

Elementals are not Mind/Fear Immune so usually exploit that and less worried about the DR.

Also opposite element

View attachment 27928

I didn't know your Freebooter ranger can fire cold rays.. so cool.

Spoiler

Lol, if your Witch wasn’t wasting turns tickling mobs with her Elemental attack you wouldn’t need your Booter to do any damage.

My Hunter on the other hand can in fact fire Cold Rays himself.

Hunter OP

 

[ArchAngel]

That elusive Mythic Bard Song DC I must have missed. Doesn't the Blast cancel your Song? You know you can just cast the (second level) spell, right? Clerics get it too, and they want Evo Focus for Archon's already.

Elementals are not Mind/Fear Immune so usually exploit that and less worried about the DR.

Also opposite element

View attachment 27928

I didn't know your Freebooter ranger can fire cold rays.. so cool.

Spoiler

Lol, if your Witch wasn’t wasting turns tickling mobs with her Elemental attack you wouldn’t need your Booter to do any damage.

My Hunter on the other hand can in fact fire Cold Rays himself.

Hunter OP

My Witch does not need to do that, so far it is still pretty easy. I cleared whole elemental island with elemental pillars with casting no offensive spells. That is why Freebooter was doing damage. Casting spells would summon some idiot that would attack my witch but he does not appear when using elemental attack as it is not considered a spell.
Between these pillars, Wild Magic and Abyss corruption while resting they really hate arcane casters, all this stuff is penalty for them or all casters, especially damage casters. You can exit any map to ship, none of these special effects work there, buff their as much as you want and then go back in with no penalty and clear enemies.

 

[Stoned Ape]

Yes, that’s what I just said. And base Fighter is better at that than Mutation for the reasons I explained. That said, even without Vestment you should have the highest always on AC in your party, which is important in a low rest environment.

Main thing AC is for is avoiding attacks from regular mobs/adds and that’s doable for conventionally armored Fighter.

Roleplay wise, I prefer normal Fighters to Mutation Warriors, but mechanically they are strictly inferior.

A Mutation warrior with Strength mutagen running and wearing a mithral breastplate is a superior damage dealer to normal fighter in mithral full plate, and (with the basic mutagen buff) has only 1 point lower AC. Plus MW can stack Fortification to soak crits on top of that. Sneaking is easier in Mithral Medium armor, too so that balances out the base fighter's armor check bonus (especially as you get magical mithral breastplates and chainmail pretty early, and mithral plate much later. By the time you do, you're finding mithral breatplates +3/+4 vs mithral full plate +1/+2 (Staunton's Carapace is the best mithral full plate I've found in the expansion so far in 2 1/2 voyages).

Mutation warrior gets full weapon training and feats, anyway. It just loses out on armor training (which you don't need with Mithral medium armor unless you're running more than 20 dex. That seems excessive on most fighter builds). MW even gets to keep Bravery for Armed Bravery, too.

In the expansion, you generally have to clear 2-3 islands between rests. It generally takes me less than 20 minutes to get past an island, and there is negligible travel time between them. Once you get to having a 60 minute mutation (9th level) you can effectively have it on all of the time. Even at the beginning, before 7th level both normal and mutation fighters are better off in medium armor as the base fighter move speed isn't boosted in heavy armor until 7th). Thus, base fighter ends up getting a small advantage over MW 8th level, but mutation warrior is equal or better the rest of the time.

Mutation Warrior is also generally better as a Vital Striking 2-handed weapon fighter than a base fighter due to higher STR after mutagen and equal access to combat training. With Greater/Grand mutagen they just get better in comparison. Vital Striking fighters are better than other types of fighter due to being able to maximize move+attack damage in the surprise round. And they get a bonus skill point on top, just to rub in their advantages.

Like I said, I prefer the idea of base fighter over mutation warrior, but they are just not as effective.

Saying that, a Barbarian is probably a much stronger choice than any type of fighter in TotMI anyway due to their move speed buff and access to Limitless Rage, and pet riding martial classes are much better than either (pets can easily get much higher ACs than their riders can, and have longer move distances).

 

[Stoned Ape]

I got my 6th character yesterday and I made it into Elf Freebooter Archer. I guess Thunder Bard will be for next run. Buff from Freebooter is nice but his damage atm is kind of bad vs enemies with DR. I need to get more levels to get that perk that makes DR only work vs first attack. My mounted paladin using battleaxe in two hands and using power attack is main damage dealer.

Did they fix Magic Weapon, Greater? It stacked (and bypassed DR) in Wrath. They also give you a ton of DR bypass ammo (or are you talking about DR/- ?). Thunderbard is bad - you can just cast the spell and get relevant DC on it. Need those Performance rounds for the songs. Dirge looks pretty all around dominant if you want a Bard.

You get your ranged damage up on Ranger/Hunter by combining Aspect of Falcon with enlarging effects and Hurricane Bow. Then on tough fights Vitals + Instant Enemy (Swift works well with Booter's Move Action Bane) and Holy/Axiomatic if you can find them (Holy Lance/Instrument of Freedom etc..). Good target for a Bless Weapon as well. Tabletop Tweaks has WIS to AB from Erastil so you just build it STR/WIS as well.

When my sorcerer casts Greater Magic Weapon, he gets the spell effect for the 1st level Magic Weapon spell instead. It definitely doesn't stack with weapon enhancement, either.