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

[Salvo]

I want Desiderius to adopt me and tell me "Son, we have to talk about your build. It's shit."

 

[Desiderius]

Indeed, welcome back.

You've been missed, Desiderius.

I really just posted about mythic mage armor and monk dips because I knew Desiderius couldn’t resist dropping in to tell me they’re memes.

Best defense is a good offense. And using offensive spells of level higher than one/the good Mythics that accentuate the strengths of your class. Grease isn't the end-all/be-all here that is in in other D&D games.

Yeah, it’s probably bad habits of thinking that I’ve formed where in other D&D games, gishes of course become very strong, but a fighter putting on their first suit of full plate is also a significant change that allows toe-to-toe combat, at least at lower levels.

I might hire a merc skald and play on hard/unfair (I did an unfair run up to chapter 2 with an inquisitor/monk using quarterstaves for flurry alongside my paladin game on core/hard, but didn’t like the gamey-ness of the build).

You’re falling for the memes. This game is the same re: the first suit of Full Plate if you don’t neglect all the usual ways available to any character to protect themselves without having to resort to a Skald Merc, which will eat up a valuable slot that could be doing something else.

I said Skald Merc because that’s what I did for my Unfair QStaff Master run but it struggled to be relevant outside of the buffs. Really needs Azata Mythic to land its spells.

You’re not good enough for Hard yet, let alone Unfair. I wasn’t. No dishonor in that.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

There’s all kinds of non-combat skill utilization in P:K/Wrath. People fall for memes, neglect their skills, then whine about the skill checks they don’t even know they’re missing.

Many such cases.

Nah in general the issue in the main game is that it doesn't provide big problem solving opportunity in consideration of the main plot's critical path. Having skills like Perception, Lore, etc usually results in you finding niftty things and all, but the game critical path (as in path that you absolutely must do to finish the game) are usually not gated or interacted much using non-combat skills. The only instance where I feel non-combat skills was absolutely useful on the critical path was I think Kenaberes Market with some Athletic/Acrobatic. I guess Sosiel first quest where you can use Athletic/Acrobatic to get to rooftop entrance to the church also counts.

Right now the DLC seems to be trying to focus on those non-combat instance which rarely happens past the first 2 chapters of the game. Well, I am not feeling confident. But if it is good then it is good.

 

[Desiderius]

Tabletop Tweaks has a pretty nice Two-Weapon Defense and its Mythic Version to add weapon enhancement bonus as shield. Mod also extends Fighter's Weapon and Armor training and adds Armor Focus for even more AC.
I had built Regill around it, with Two-Weapon Defense, Crane Style, Heavy Armor Focus and new mythic feats for armor he was nice and sturdy enough to reasonably tank on Hard.

Mod itself is a huge recommend from me. It is completely configurable so any fix/addition could be switched on/off separately in mod menu and incredibly stable too.

Reg doesn't need the help if you fight Reduced, give him Nobility Domain, and use his Aura he comes with. That's 7 AC, five of it for the whole team, and it all stacks because it's untyped, Morale, and Insight AC.

Then you can use his Feats for Dazzling/Dreadful + Fearsomeness and build your own Vavakia Vanguard (it's a skill check for you so no Save).

 

[Desiderius]

There’s all kinds of non-combat skill utilization in P:K/Wrath. People fall for memes, neglect their skills, then whine about the skill checks they don’t even know they’re missing.

Many such cases.

Nah in general the issue in the main game is that it doesn't provide big problem solving opportunity in consideration of the main plot's critical path. Having skills like Perception, Lore, etc usually results in you finding niftty things and all, but the game critical path (as in path that you absolutely must do to finish the game) are usually not gated or interacted much using non-combat skills. The only instance where I feel non-combat skills was absolutely useful on the critical path was I think Kenaberes Market with some Athletic/Acrobatic. I guess Sosiel first quest where you can use Athletic/Acrobatic to get to rooftop entrance to the church also counts.

Right now the DLC seems to be trying to focus on those non-combat instance which rarely happens past the first 2 chapters of the game. Well, I am not feeling confident. But if it is good then it is good.

There's some explicit main path skills at the end but you've also got the Dragon fight that can get you killed if you don't pass some high Mobility/Nature Checks IIRC, there's a pretty important side quest gated behind 40 Religion, the camping skills, high Stealth preventing ambushes while traveling, high Nature preventing fatigue (giving you more rests), likewise with Religion preventing corruption. It's all there. There's plenty to bitch about without ragging on the things they actually did well.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

the camping skills, high Stealth preventing ambushes while traveling, high Nature preventing fatigue (giving you more rests), likewise with Religion preventing corruption.

Yeah but this is not the thing that the DLC will focus about. These will be there for sure but this is the game base mechanic. The screenshot of the DLC show the "interactive" point for non-combat skills or item specific context that's not really done well in base game critical path.

There's some explicit main path skills at the end but you've also got the Dragon fight that can get you killed if you don't pass some high Mobility/Nature Checks IIRC, there's a pretty important side quest gated behind 40 Religion,

Yeah end game there is some but it is very few and far in between. And once again there is difference between binary checks to unlock something and designing a campaign around having multiple such options e.g. the Underrail approach of having different combat and non-combat skills affecting the how you would solve the problem. The DLC seems to want to focus on non-combat side of thing as main focus, one of the weakest aspect in both KM and WotR.

Of course this is purely assumption based on screenshots, so we will see in the end of the month after playing it.

Oh and welcome back Desi, good to have you back.

 

[Desiderius]

Thanks man, appreciate it. Glad you don't take my annoyances personally. They're not intended that way and I'm as hard on myself as anyone. I just don't waste people's time poasting about my own fuckups.

 

[Kaivokz]

You’re falling for the memes. This game is the same re: the first suit of Full Plate if you don’t neglect all the usual ways available to any character to protect themselves without having to resort to a Skald Merc, which will eat up a valuable slot that could be doing something else.

I said Skald Merc because that’s what I did for my Unfair QStaff Master run but it struggled to be relevant outside of the buffs. Really needs Azata Mythic to land its spells.

You’re not good enough for Hard yet, let alone Unfair. I wasn’t. No dishonor in that.

Wrath of the Righteous is not like, for example, BG1 with respect to getting a suit of full plate. The amount of nasty creatures in WotR is way higher—I mean in the town square area alone are babu with long spears who will sneak attack crit you if you fail initiative (and probably one shot you at that level), incorporeal creatures that drain strength/dex, things that spam mass inflict light wounds and all other sorts of encounters which require more advanced tactics early on. I’m not opposed to that, but it’s a very different kind of game. It’s like if 70% of early fights were full of kobolds with flaming arrows or that knife-throwing guy instead of gibberlings and half-orc bandits or what have you.

I actually prefer the difficulty of WotR, but as I stated in my first post, I found core TOO easy, while I struggled with hard given the specific build I had (or rather it turned into pets tanking things while my paladin moved around the side to avoid more than one or two people attacking him at once, which is fine for beating the game, but just not what I was going for). I’m planning to start over since it has been about 8 months since I last played, which is why I posted here about the tabletop tweaks to see if it gave more options to armored characters.

I had my paladin using a greatsword last time, but maybe this time I’ll double grip longsword and use a shield in some circumstances or play a fully armored battle oracle to have some more defensive spell utility. I had less trouble with bosses than enemies between bosses because of smite evil. One of the last things I did was

Spoiler

the siege of Drezen, and basically walked over that demon guy at the end on hard on the first try.

edit- to clarify that, I'm agreeing with you, my knowledge of builds and game mechanics was not good enough for Hard/Unfair and by that point of my last run I had probably relegated my paladin to sideline damage dealer for anything above core unless it was a smite evil target.

 

[Desiderius]

You’re falling for the memes. This game is the same re: the first suit of Full Plate if you don’t neglect all the usual ways available to any character to protect themselves without having to resort to a Skald Merc, which will eat up a valuable slot that could be doing something else.

I said Skald Merc because that’s what I did for my Unfair QStaff Master run but it struggled to be relevant outside of the buffs. Really needs Azata Mythic to land its spells.

You’re not good enough for Hard yet, let alone Unfair. I wasn’t. No dishonor in that.

Wrath of the Righteous is not like, for example, BG1 with respect to getting a suit of full plate. The amount of nasty creatures in WotR is way higher—I mean in the town square area alone are babu with long spears who will sneak attack crit you if you fail initiative (and probably one shot you at that level), incorporeal creatures that drain strength/dex, things that spam mass inflict light wounds and all other sorts of encounters which require more advanced tactics early on. I’m not opposed to that, but it’s a very different kind of game. It’s like if 70% of early fights were full of kobolds with flaming arrows or that knife-throwing guy instead of gibberlings and half-orc bandits or what have you.

I actually prefer the difficulty of WotR, but as I stated in my first post, I found core TOO easy, while I struggled with hard given the specific build I had (or rather it turned into pets tanking things while my paladin moved around the side to avoid more than one or two people attacking him at once, which is fine for beating the game, but just not what I was going for). I’m planning to start over since it has been about 8 months since I last played, which is why I posted here about the tabletop tweaks to see if it gave more options to armored characters.

I had my paladin using a greatsword last time, but maybe this time I’ll double grip longsword and use a shield in some circumstances or play a fully armored battle oracle to have some more defensive spell utility. I had less trouble with bosses than enemies between bosses because of smite evil. One of the last things I did was

Spoiler

the siege of Drezen, and basically walked over that demon guy at the end on hard on the first try.

edit- to clarify that, I'm agreeing with you, my knowledge of builds and game mechanics was not good enough for Hard/Unfair and by that point of my last run I had probably relegated my paladin to sideline damage dealer for anything above core unless it was a smite evil target.

Yes, this all sounds great. Learn to cast Barkskin. You're putting the cart before the horse. We've all gotten ganked by that Babau. There are ways to avoid that.

 

[razvedchiki]

I might hire a merc skald and play on hard/unfair (I did an unfair run up to chapter 2 with an inquisitor/monk using quarterstaves for flurry alongside my paladin game on core/hard, but didn’t like the gamey-ness of the build).

a yes, skald through the barbarian rage powers can give you more ac.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I did not play past act 3 (although I highly doubt the situation changes later), but in wrath tanking in the very classical meaning of the word (plate and a shield, get stuck in and facetank) is definitely not gonna work particularly well on higher difficulty levels. The difference is quite noticeable compared to the previous game. If you want a lore friendly tank without dips and re-casting buffs from the available options, your best bet is Camelia. Get ice hex at the first level up, buy the ice hex ring as soon as you reach the inn, do the tower asap to get the enchanted chainshirt. That's already very decent for early game and she can cast barkskin, vest and whatnot on herself.

I have to yet check how pet tanking works here as it was super good in km as far as non-meme options go. I assume with the addition of turning that annoying whatshisname into vivi for a shield spell it should be gud for early game. I also kinda want to try invulnerable rager with endless rage, but I don't think it's going to be very good and the +dr items I saw in the game previously were literally all bugged.

Oh, and I guess that's very obvious at this point, but the double-roll defensive hex from your friendly neighborhood witch is very good for early game tanking.

 

[whocares]

I will not eat the bugs. I will not live in a pod. I will not use 2FA.

 

[Desiderius]

I did not play past act 3 (although I highly doubt the situation changes later), but in wrath tanking in the very classical meaning of the word (plate and a shield, get stuck in and facetank) is definitely not gonna work particularly well on higher difficulty levels. The difference is quite noticeable compared to the previous game. If you want a lore friendly tank without dips and re-casting buffs from the available options, your best bet is Camelia. Get ice hex at the first level up, buy the ice hex ring as soon as you reach the inn, do the tower asap to get the enchanted chainshirt. That's already very decent for early game and she can cast barkskin, vest and whatnot on herself.

I have to yet check how pet tanking works here as it was super good in km as far as non-meme options go. I assume with the addition of turning that annoying whatshisname into vivi for a shield spell it should be gud for early game. I also kinda want to try invulnerable rager with endless rage, but I don't think it's going to be very good and the +dr items I saw in the game previously were literally all bugged.

Oh, and I guess that's very obvious at this point, but the double-roll defensive hex from your friendly neighborhood witch is very good for early game tanking.

The tools are there to get tanky enough for all but a couple bosses, and even there if you'r offense is where it should be you can usually last long enough. People just aren't taking advantage of the existing tools in most cases.

Cam's decent at that but Leopard is better for the very early game. Cam can do major damage with DEX-to-Damage at lvl 5 and Enemies Bane at 8 with Hampering Hex ticking up to -4 AC at lvl 8 as well. Iceplant has a big Opportunity Cost when you can get Dazzling and/or metamagic via Hex. She can throw some really big Snowballs if you grab all the metas that way. Can stack them all just in time for a certain dragon.



If you want to go Vivi with Wolj it works better if you wait until lvl 12 to pick up Double Debilitation (with Uncanny at eight). Seelah starts with Shield Focus but you don't get a really good Full Plate until Drezen.

As with Amiri in PK you've got to make use of good tactics with the two-handers but that can often mean just taking a round to cast or whatever then wading in.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

If the guy wants to have a tank then he wants to have a tank, I don't think 'roided snowballs are a relevant point here. You can get the hex at first lvl up, you can get the ring as soon as you're out of tutorial. Up until the moment I played I didn't see anything that would come close to offering +4ac for one ring slot. That's permanent and fully stackable. No spell slots, no casting, no turns wasted, no saving throws, no dispell/ignore, no duration, no nothing. Yeah, I'm not passing on that if I want to have a legal, lore-friendly tank that doesn't rely on buffs and debuffs to go to a toilet.

I'm planning to get back to the game once the new dlc/patch hits so I will check pet tanking (probably return to my initial idea of playing a hunter), but I expect char dex tank will go ahead, pre-buff, once you do the initial item setup. The real question is how long can you maintain it, I expect you start needing to heavily lean on buffs/debuffs p soon.

 

[Haplo]

If the guy wants to have a tank then he wants to have a tank, I don't think 'roided snowballs are a relevant point here. You can get the hex at first lvl up, you can get the ring as soon as you're out of tutorial. Up until the moment I played I didn't see anything that would come close to offering +4ac for one ring slot. That's permanent and fully stackable. No spell slots, no casting, no turns wasted, no saving throws, no dispell/ignore, no duration, no nothing. Yeah, I'm not passing on that if I want to have a legal, lore-friendly tank that doesn't rely on buffs and debuffs to go to a toilet.

I'm planning to get back to the game once the new dlc/patch hits so I will check pet tanking (probably return to my initial idea of playing a hunter), but I expect char dex tank will go ahead, pre-buff, once you do the initial item setup. The real question is how long can you maintain it, I expect you start needing to heavily lean on buffs/debuffs p soon.

Yep, dedicated tanks win. But pets are almost "free" and good enough (at least on Hard), particularly with Protective Hex and Shield infusion. The rider can then focus on the offense. That's a WIN in my book.
Also I'm an addict of Spirited Charge... (with Pounce plus Mythic Charge, plus...).

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I was super pumped for playing a mounted, charging char in wrath, but I tried that in the initial build and I think it scarred me for life.

 

[NJClaw]

I was super pumped for playing a mounted, charging char in wrath, but I tried that in the initial build and I think it scarred me for life.

The visual bugs that allowed you to play a monstrous centaur by increasing your horse's size was (is?) pretty fun.

 

[Haplo]

Well, its no easy path for sure.
But some things help.
1. DO NOT ride a Huge mount. Meaning don't pick Horse, as it will grow Huge with Animal Growth (and you want to use this buff). Other animals are bugged and don't grow beyond their ~level 7 growth (unless with Legendary Proportions - don't). A Huge mount will get stuck in geometry all the time.
2. My focus has been to optimize positioning. I want a Swift Action teleport ability for that. Arcane Rider has it (but is a bit slow to romp, medium BAB and limited feats hurt). Clerics and Inquisitors with Travel Domain and Domain Zealot also have that (also medium BAB, but can multiclass past level 8 - Arcane Rider gets Swift Slide at 14). Its not perfect, I've lost my opportunity more then I'd care to admit, but it does work much more reliably then normal charging in Turn Based mode.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

The visual bugs that allowed you to play a monstrous centaur by increasing your horse's size was (is?) pretty fun.

Sounds cool. I had one leg overboard as soon as I saw all the epilepsy attacks my char was suffering when I asked him to do the one thing he was supposed to do. I was already past the "abandon ship!" threshold when I learned that all the mounted feats just flat out don't work.

 

[Daidre]

No spell slots, no casting, no turns wasted, no saving throws, no dispell/ignore, no duration, no nothing. Yeah, I'm not passing on that if I want to have a legal, lore-friendly tank that doesn't rely on buffs and debuffs to go to a toilet.

From my experience - convenient tanking works and works well up until the last dungeon of Chapter 3. And many things, from Camelia to horses and leopards could do it.
But second half of the game is a different - enemies AB jumps up, but what is more important, battlefield changes. There are just so many archers, teleporting babaus, stunning vroks, compulsion-spamming succubi and true-seeing enemies (with a shitton of other buffs) that imho, AC becomes the least of the problems. And all those nice things often spawned all around party and not exactly interested at hitting one particular target built specifically for eating melee attacks.
So I usually abandon all attempts to rely at defense and just go for Wierd, Hellfire Rays and uber damage from melees/archers.

 

[Desiderius]

If the guy wants to have a tank then he wants to have a tank, I don't think 'roided snowballs are a relevant point here. You can get the hex at first lvl up, you can get the ring as soon as you're out of tutorial. Up until the moment I played I didn't see anything that would come close to offering +4ac for one ring slot. That's permanent and fully stackable. No spell slots, no casting, no turns wasted, no saving throws, no dispell/ignore, no duration, no nothing. Yeah, I'm not passing on that if I want to have a legal, lore-friendly tank that doesn't rely on buffs and debuffs to go to a toilet.

I'm planning to get back to the game once the new dlc/patch hits so I will check pet tanking (probably return to my initial idea of playing a hunter), but I expect char dex tank will go ahead, pre-buff, once you do the initial item setup. The real question is how long can you maintain it, I expect you start needing to heavily lean on buffs/debuffs p soon.

It's not +4 AC for one ring slot, it's + 4 AC for a Ring Slot and burning a Hex.

Opportunity Cost. It's a thing. And you're using your ONLY Hex at that point. 100% of the available.

DEX doesn't embarass itself in melee but it's not the end-all be-all. Mounted is great if clunky and Seelah has the tools with long-lasting Veil etc as well and even Greybor (Shield Mastery at 11) and Reg (+5 stacking AC for team) can hold their own if you use what they bring to the table.

I was down on Iceplant, then ok with it, then ended up down on it. If you have to have a tank (you don't) and you have to play on Hard and above just give a companion you're not planning to use a Leopard class and you'll tank (much) better and not have to gimp Cam's offensive/debuffing capacity.

 

[Desiderius]

No spell slots, no casting, no turns wasted, no saving throws, no dispell/ignore, no duration, no nothing. Yeah, I'm not passing on that if I want to have a legal, lore-friendly tank that doesn't rely on buffs and debuffs to go to a toilet.

From my experience - convenient tanking works and works well up until the last dungeon of Chapter 3. And many things, from Camelia to horses and leopards could do it.
But second half of the game is a different - enemies AB jumps up, but what is more important, battlefield changes. There are just so many archers, teleporting babaus, stunning vroks, compulsion-spamming succubi and true-seeing enemies (with a shitton of other buffs) that imho, AC becomes the least of the problems. And all those nice things often spawned all around party and not exactly interested at hitting one particular target built specifically for eating melee attacks.
So I usually abandon all attempts to rely at defense and just go for Wierd, Hellfire Rays and uber damage from melees/archers.

This is true but you can get everyone's AC high enough at that point not to have to worry about non-Boss attacks. And you don't have access to Weird or a decent Hellfire yet at that point anyway. Nenio's Phantasmal Web/Putrefaction among many other things can get everything under control though.

 

[Desiderius]

BTW the Bubble Buff mod makes all the buffing painless so that's not an excuse. The hard part is figuring out all the stacking party-wide sources and how to get access to them all. You've got enough rests in Wrath to use all the min/lvl stuff and the rnd/lvl for the hardest fights.

Wrath incentives resting more to give your army time to grow as long as you don't let yourself get in trouble with Corruption/Morale.

The Mobility Save Mount ability (the main good one) was working fine the last time I played. It lets you use the relic that gives your Mount +6 untyped STR.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

How do you value the opportunity cost of giving someone a pet class just because you don't want to give your dedicated tank the first level hex that's obviously extremely good for tanking? Game's choke full off feats that give +1ac, this shit's pure platinum at the going rates.

Leopard class and you'll tank (much) better

So you're saying, pre-buff, leopard is a much better tank than someone with 20dex, tower chainshirt, ice hex ring and a shield? Not saying it's not, but citation needed.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Btw, I've thought that leopard might be strictly better super early, but if wiki is right it starts on 21 dex and +4 nat armor, so eh, p whatever.