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

[Desiderius]

I just took it for granted that everyone was resting at corruption nodes (other than Garrison where you need to keep up the Haste). What I'm talking about is a more modest version of what the AD&D revival guys are doing, where they plan out *months* long campaigns for a single dungeon or years for the siege of a stronghold and make a pretty good case that this is how Gygax and his playgroup did it and intended for their rule-set to be played (also of course more realistic).

You don't really have or need months here (although you've got far more time than most are using) but you can still plan to take dungeons in multiple steps while clearing nearby areas on the way there and back for each foray. That lets you scout out what kind of foes you're facing then prepare the best party make-up, spells, and items to take out each one. The way the traps are laid out in the Leper's Smile cave along with the mandatory hour delay before the Retriever almost mandates this, but it's not far to camp there and taking your time gives your army a chance to build up for the assault on the north of the map.

 

[Daidre]

For me, if you need to rest more then once in any dungeon in P:K or Wrath it is just a signal that your party gruesomely underperforms for the difficulty you are playing on. Only Hate house was long and scripted enough to maybe warrant two-three rests.

I mean, Desiderius making some crazy plans about brewing liters of potions in the Rogue-like, but I have started clear save on Hard (for achievs) and I was resting once per Expedition max even without Legacy bonuses.

One banal sniper Rowdy was carrying party that hard.

 

[Desiderius]

I tend to take Enduring + Greater Enduring instead of Abundant(+improved and greater) on Daeran + a PC sorcerer or Oracle and thus saving a mythic ability for second bloodline/mystery. They tend to run low on resources around the time that my prepared casters need to rest after burning through their abundant spells anyway. Usually the first rest is 9 hours so their enduring spells are all still up and they have a complete spellbook to cast from when they wake up while the non-enduring casters have to refresh their buffs.

Also, having Enduring Haste on my Legend/Lich just made the bigger dungeons in act 5 far less tedious to trudge through.

You've got a zillion casts by then anyway? I don't take Enduring *or* Abundant on Daeran since Second Mystery lets you pick up a Mount which unlocks the TTT Mounted Mythics (or just the pet one if you're vanilla) and Mythic Channeling is really good for him on the Feat side. So many options out there that people never even get to try out because so locked in to Enduring.

 

[Desiderius]

For me, if you need to rest more then once in any dungeon in P:K or Wrath it is just a signal that your party gruesomely underperforms for the difficulty you are playing on. Only Hate house was long and scripted enough to maybe warrant two-three rest.

I mean, Desiderius making some crazy plans about brewing liters of potions in the Rogue-like, but I have started clear save on Hard (for achievs) and I was resting once per Expedition max even without Legacy bonuses.

One banal sniper Rowdy was carrying the party that hard.

You *can't* rest in the Roguelike, which is why you need the pots. I'm making three or four in Port but mostly using Enhance/Extend/UMD to make use of found ones like Nenio can do with Scrolls in Main.

DLC is polar opposite of main game when it comes to rest.

Again, Daidre you've kind of exposed yourself when you talk about spamming Mass Heals. I'm playing tinman when I'm on Hard and rarely need any since that means I'm cutting things too close. Needlessly as it happens on the main game if I were avoiding rests. If you've got BubbleBuff and want to keep Haste up for every fight why *wouldn't* you at least recharge three or four times (whenever you find a corruption reduction node) to configure spells to match coming foes so you wouldn't have to burn two Mythics on convenience BubbleBuff already gives you? Underperforming compared to what? Not my team that has 6-8 more Mythic Abilities, I can guarantee you that.

 

[Parabalus]

Robe of Seven Sins is an absurdly busted item in the main campaign - combined with other CL-boosting items, it lets any character with greater enduring spells and a CL of 20 extend their Illusion, Transmutation, and Evocation rounds/level buffs to 24 hours. Combine that with the extra XP from the Isles getting you to level 20 very early in Act 5 and you can just run around with 24-hr greater invisibility, displacement, divine power, and haste even without spellbook merging.

Two Mythic abilities is a massive opportunity cost for something you don’t even need by the time you get it. Really don’t get the obsession with Enduring. Wrath is a high rest environment. Of course it's convenient (especially with recharging casts with Heal from Hand in Nexus so never have to rest at all if you don't want to) but so is Bubble Buff or just not playing in the first place. If I'm playing the game I want to plan my spells to memorize/select and rest to recharge them along with Brewing/Scribing.

But resting is admitting defeat. Ideally you rest just on the world map, never in dungeons.

Game’s hard enough without adding unnecessary stipulations. Rest was bad in P:K because time wasn’t on your side. In Wrath it is.

Use it.

Don’t worry about “cheese” or other nonsense (feel for my younger brothers here scarred for life from growing up during the faceroll phone game craze - if Wrath and Old World are any indication we’re headed back to coin-op difficulty levels so cheese will be the last thing on your minds) since corruption keeps rest spam in check.

VTomb locked you in. Can you name the Dungeons in Wrath that do likewise? No shame in stretching out your dungeoneering with multiple forays as Gygax intended.

Alternatively, if you have to rest too often you might as well turn the difficulty down.

I just took it for granted that everyone was resting at corruption nodes (other than Garrison where you need to keep up the Haste).

Every time you can skip a corruption node you can pat yourself on the back instead.

 

[Desiderius]

Too often compared to what? Corruption sets a hard limit per foray from the Citadel, and there's an overall timer set by Galfrey's arrival at Fane (I think).

Why wouldn't you take advantage of the time you're given to do the best you can then play the difficulty that fits that performance? Especially when your army and resources are growing the whole time and the enemies' aren't? This isn't P:K.

 

[Parabalus]

Too often compared to what? Corruption sets a hard limit per foray from the Citadel, and there's an overall timer set by Galfrey's arrival at Fane (I think).

Why wouldn't you take advantage of the time you're given to do the best you can then play the difficulty that fits that performance? Especially when your army and resources are growing the whole time and the enemies' aren't? This isn't P:K.

Resting is boring and takes too long.

Compare resting times in PF vs IE games: minutes vs <0.2sec.

Owlcat did a good job disincentivising rest spam, should give them credit.

 

[Acrux]

What I'm talking about is a more modest version of what the AD&D revival guys are doing, where they plan out *months* long campaigns for a single dungeon or years for the siege of a stronghold and make a pretty good case that this is how Gygax and his playgroup did it and intended for their rule-set to be played (also of course more realistic).

They also say that the players are supposed to leave the dungeon at the end of each session if they haven't explored it completely, leaving the opportunity for monsters to increase their strength, prepare for the players, etc. So, it's almost the exact opposite of "rest as much as you want" in a video game.

 

[Daidre]

DLC is polar opposite of main game when it comes to rest.

You will get magic table for rest spammers to clean corruption before getting to the most difficult content.

Again, @Daidre you've kind of exposed yourself when you talk about spamming Mass Heals.

And it serves me excellently in rogue-like:
- Shadow Demon blinded half of the party with Sunburst - Mass Heal
- Siabrae got Polar Midnight with dex damage - Mass Heal
- Kingmaker's ghost hit everyone with Blinding Sickness Cloud - Mass Heal
- Got some very unlucky rolls vs Unholy Aura - Mass Heal
There are dozens of each in later parts of rogue-like, if you cure that all manually - I am sorry for your time management skills.

 

[Desiderius]

What I'm talking about is a more modest version of what the AD&D revival guys are doing, where they plan out *months* long campaigns for a single dungeon or years for the siege of a stronghold and make a pretty good case that this is how Gygax and his playgroup did it and intended for their rule-set to be played (also of course more realistic).

They also say that the players are supposed to leave the dungeon at the end of each session if they haven't explored it completely, leaving the opportunity for monsters to increase their strength, prepare for the players, etc. So, it's almost the exact opposite of "rest as much as you want" in a video game.

For fuck sake nobody is saying rest as much as you want. Corruption already prevents rest spam. Why is everybody insisting on being so stupid about this?

Your choices are:

(1) Rest at the places they give you to rest and finally get cool Mythic abilities that already take way too long to show up in the first place.

(2) Blow off those Mythic abilities even longer (until the game is almost over) so you can pointlessly flex online about how long you can go without rest to three people with their heads up the same ass.

Additionally you can break up your campaigns into more manageable sections to give your armies time to develop to own ch 3 and your infrastructure to own ch 5. The Demons are the ones under seige here, not you.

Charges of the Light Brigades are not smart.

 

[Desiderius]

DLC is polar opposite of main game when it comes to rest.

You will get magic table for rest spammers to clean corruption before getting to the most difficult content.

Again, @Daidre you've kind of exposed yourself when you talk about spamming Mass Heals.

And it servers me excellently in rogue-like:
- Shadow Demon blinded half of the party with Sunburst - Mass Heal
- Siabrae got Polar Midnight with dex damage - Mass Heal
- Kingmaker's ghost hit everyone with Blinding Sickness Cloud - Mass Heal
- Got some very unlucky rolls vs Unholy Aura - Mass Heal
There are dozens of each in later parts of rogue-like, if you cure that all manually - I am sorry for your time management skills.

DLC, DLC, DLC - there’s a reason you keep coming back to that. It forces low rest. Main game doesn’t - there’s time to properly prepare yourself so none of that happens.

If it does regularly you’re looking at as many reloads as situations that can be fixed by Mass Heal. Ounce of Prevention. Ice Body owns Polar Midnight, Stunned Shadow Demons aren’t Blinding anybody, Disease Immunity stops Plague Storm, etc.

If only Danger Ward worked right I could reroll crit miss saves and be good anyway.

 

[Desiderius]

Too often compared to what? Corruption sets a hard limit per foray from the Citadel, and there's an overall timer set by Galfrey's arrival at Fane (I think).

Why wouldn't you take advantage of the time you're given to do the best you can then play the difficulty that fits that performance? Especially when your army and resources are growing the whole time and the enemies' aren't? This isn't P:K.

Resting is boring and takes too long.

Compare resting times in PF vs IE games: minutes vs <0.2sec.

Owlcat did a good job disincentivising rest spam, should give them credit.

WTF are you even talking about? Are you playing on a toaster? You can even click thru dialogue.

 

[Desiderius]

You will get magic table for rest spammers to clean corruption before getting to the most difficult content.

I’m lvl 14/M4 and still haven’t seen it. By that point you’ve already slogged thru half the game bereft of your Mythics because you blew them on Enduring.

We haven’t even gotten to the main thing you guys are missing because you’re addicted to Spontaneous: Favorite Meta Mythic

 

[Daidre]

By that point you’ve already slogged thru half the game bereft of your Mythics because you blew them on Enduring.

Better to blew your Mythics on enduring than on some irredeemable trash like Channel that is replaceable by Mass Cure line and completely obsolete once you hit Mass Heal (could be as early as lvl 16 on oracle, even earlier if merged).

 

[Parabalus]

Too often compared to what? Corruption sets a hard limit per foray from the Citadel, and there's an overall timer set by Galfrey's arrival at Fane (I think).

Why wouldn't you take advantage of the time you're given to do the best you can then play the difficulty that fits that performance? Especially when your army and resources are growing the whole time and the enemies' aren't? This isn't P:K.

Resting is boring and takes too long.

Compare resting times in PF vs IE games: minutes vs <0.2sec.

Owlcat did a good job disincentivising rest spam, should give them credit.

WTF are you even talking about? Are you playing on a toaster? You can even click thru dialogue.

1. Place bedrolls
2. Wait for party to walk to them
3. Assign party members to rest roles
4. Endure dialogue - clicking through helps, but it isn't instant. This is a bit conflicting, since some of the dialogues are great
5. Wait for roll outcomes - sound effects are extra trippy too

 

[Lambach]

But resting is admitting defeat.

It also feels completely out of place contextually in most situations, even if the gameplay allows it.

"Oh, so we're in the realm of Baphomet himself, filled to the brim with some of the most terrifying murderous Demons he has at his disposal that are just itching to tear us to shreds. Better grab a quick 20-hour nap to replenish our Spells and Abilities. I'm sure all those Demons will respect the Gentleman's Code and not gang up on us all at once while we're at our weakest"

However, most larger dungeons feature such vast amounts of combat that most Parties will have to rest at least once to go through them, at least on Core+ difficulties, so it's a case of sacrificing muh immershun for the sake of gameplay.

 

[Desiderius]

But resting is admitting defeat.

It also feels completely out of place contextually in most situations, even if the gameplay allows it.

"Oh, so we're in the realm of Baphomet himself, filled to the brim with some of the most terrifying murderous Demons he has at his disposal that are just itching to tear us to shreds. Better grab a quick 20-hour nap to replenish our Spells and Abilities. I'm sure all those Demons will respect the Gentleman's Code and not gang up on us all at once while we're at our weakest"

However, most larger dungeons feature such vast amounts of combat that most Parties will have to rest at least once to go through them, at least on Core+ difficulties, so it's a case of sacrificing muh immershun for the sake of gameplay.

I get it - you guys grew up on games designed for idiots so had to police your own exploits, including rest spam. Then you had to come up with a rationalization for why it made sense to do so.

But that’s not this game. It’s a throwback to before the Soyers got a big head about how much smarter they were than the people who play their games. Finding a safe place to rest in Dave’s Challenge or New Phlan or whatever was a big deal. Hell Pierre does the same thing in KotC. Same with that forgotten hallway with the piled-up treasure in the Ivory Labyrinth (on the far side of some chalkenging fights involving dodging traps and hidden Flame Strikers and the like).

There’s absolutely no dishonor whatsoever in resting up there with sentries posted and somebody who’d better be pretty damn good at Stealth making sure you’re well hidden. And nothing immersion breaking - if there were any wandering monsters there they’d have helped themselves to the treasure. Maybe whatever it was that removed that corruption is looking over you too.

Likewise you’re in a labyrinth - it only stands to reason that you’d make sure you mapped the way sufficiently to return to the surface as needed to camp out and restock supplies and what not, and its not trivial to get enough Stealth to avoid ambush there by very dangerous wandering monsters.

You’re needlessly adding difficulty to a game where the devs have already handled that for you, and for what? To miss out on one of the main payoffs to making it that deep into the game: the unique Mythic abilities that make each class and path play out differently?

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I'm in agreement that dungeons shouldn't be rested in without some contrivance that allows it. In in PnP you're typically going to be using a spell like Rope Trick to make it happen. Reinforcements like monsters and new traps also tend to appear in PnP. Baldur's Gate games having a high % that rest would be interrupted and ambushed in hostile territory was proper. I avoid resting in dungeons as a personal scruple. I rested in Vordakai's Tomb once after crashing the zombie banquet near the end of it. HatEoT had a safe zone for it. I know I rested at least once there, probably twice. I would prefer that CRPGs take more from their PnP roots an implement utility spells to achieve this. Like casting a Seeming spell on your party to make them look like ordinary guards off duty or some such. These bits make a huge impact on the quality of a game. A NWN persistent world I played on required things like Zone of Alarm stones if not resting in a designated (limited use) safe zone of dungeon, like a lockable storage room.

 

[Desiderius]

Wrath already has all that. Stealth is not trivial. Wandering mobs are a threat. Even if you pass the Stealth check (and the Nature check to travel without Fatigue to get there in the first place, and the Religion check to reduce corruption while resting) it’s not like you can get away with resting much before you have to head back to somewhere with corruption protection.

Seriously, what game are you playing? I guess now I’m finally in favor of nerfing Enduring because not only is everyone missing out on all the cool Mythics you’re also evidently under the impression that rest spam would be a thing if you weren’t.

Maybe resting takes so long because you’re save scumming the skill checks?

 

[Lambach]

Wandering mobs are a threat.

Not really. The only time I had trouble after a failed Camouflage Check during resting was when I was attacked by a Vrolikai at level 8. Other than that, when my Rest gets disrupted, it's almost always by 2-3 fairly weak enemies (relative to the location you're resting at) that are simply an annoyance, rather than an actual hindrance.

But again, there are too many situations in which Resting for 8+ hours simply makes no sense (specially if you do it multiple times). I don't care how good at Stealth you are, there is no way for 6 people to stay in the same place for 8 hours or more and not be detected by enemies in situations like the attack on Grey Garrison, Drezen Siege, etc. Or even in Ineluctable Prison, if you want to be pedantic, because Baphomet is (allegedly) supposed to be fully aware of everything that happens in there and should direct every Demon in the place towards your party while they're snoring like sailors.

 

[Desiderius]

It’s not Baphomet removing that corruption. Or maybe he is to toy with you. You’re still trying to explain something that needs no explanation *in this game.* Sieges and battles take time. People sleep. Sentries are posted. Shifts taken. Diversions created. Blinds constructed.

You’re just dead wrong. And for what?

“Depending on location” is doing a lot of work here since the locations you’re whining about people being able to supposedly rest spam are the ones where you’re going to get bumrushed by the worst mobs (unless you’ve got Aru along with some items to help, or a comparable character).

Nobody is casually handling a pack of Nabasu, Ash Giants, and Bodaks on level with their buffs down on Hard.

 

[Desiderius]

I think they avoid respawns because they really don’t want any grinding. The much noted and lamented density of fights achieves a similar effect.

Along those lines one thing the DLC does really well is to make Danger Sense relevant for the first time by taking away EXP from Disarming traps (will be sorely missed) and setting up fights where you can gain a large advantage by simply charging thru them rather than trying to fight at range or sneak in to disarm (sometimes not possible).

 

[Lambach]

Seiges and battles take time. People sleep.

Sure, but unless I failed my Pathfinder Lore Check, Demons don't. And it's not like you're part of the siege itself, per se, as in you're standing outside the walls and waiting to starve the besieged enemy out of resources. Your Party is the Elite Hit Squad sent to take out a high-priority target through the backdoor.

Just as a dumb example, imagine any movie you like in which there's a siege of a castle, and a small unit made of the best fighters is sent to infiltrate the castle via some backdoor and take out the leader of the enemy army, open the castle gates or whatever.

Now imagine that same unit going to sleep for 8+ hours during this operation. Twice. Or thrice.

Yeah, gameplay-wise it makes sense to allow Resting even in these situations given the amount of combat the game throws at you, but I certainly would not allow something like that if I were DM-ing a PnP session, because it's retarded.

“Depending on location” is doing a lot of work here since the locations you’re whining about people being able to supposedly rest spam are the ones where you’re going to get bumrushed by the worst mobs

The last time I failed to Camouflage in Drezen was inside that section you go to after defeating the Balor (Darrazand or whatever his name was) and I got bum-rushed by like 3-4 of those something-Votuary guys. I was able to beat them even as resource-drained as I was, which means they're hardly "the worst mobs".

 

[Desiderius]

Seiges and battles take time. People sleep.

Sure, but unless I failed my Pathfinder Lore Check, Demons don't. And it's not like you're part of the siege itself, per se, as in you're standing outside the walls and waiting to starve the besieged enemy out of resources. Your Party is the Elite Hit Squad sent to take out a high-priority target through the backdoor.

Just as a dumb example, imagine any movie you like in which there's a siege of a castle, and a small unit made of the best fighters is sent to infiltrate the castle via some backdoor and take out the leader of the enemy army, open the castle gates or whatever.

Now imagine that same unit going to sleep for 8+ hours during this operation. Twice. Or thrice.

Yeah, gameplay-wise it makes sense to allow Resting even in these situations given the amount of combat the game throws at you, but I certainly would not allow something like that if I were DM-ing a PnP session, because it's retarded.

“Depending on location” is doing a lot of work here since the locations you’re whining about people being able to supposedly rest spam are the ones where you’re going to get bumrushed by the worst mobs

The last time I failed to Camouflage in Drezen was inside that section you go to after defeating the Balor (Darrazand or whatever his name was) and I got bum-rushed by like 3-4 of those something-Votuary guys. I was able to beat them even as resource-drained as I was, which means they're hardly "the worst mobs".

We’re not talking about Drezen but yeah a Siege on that scale would take (much) more than a day and you only unlock resting/vending spots by taking sections of the city (or establishing safe houses) if you do the frontal assault which seems to be the default.

If you choose the infiltration mission you’re locked into taking Reg and presumably the Hellknights would already have set up safehouses within any city they were planning to assault - that’s kind of their thing.

Nurah would have told the Demons about her plan and they would assume you were safely dead, as you’re at significant risk of being if you make the mistake of trusting her.

Taking your time in general is strategically advantageous (unlike P:K) but anything but trivial to achieve tactically unless as I’ve suggested you plan ahead to take multiple bites at the apple on tough dungeons by setting up a fort with a corruption shrine for instance within a day’s travel or just taking out a chunk on your way to doing something else then coming back later. Even there you’re hard-capped against anything like rest spam within dungeons by corruption and the higher skill checks to avoid ambushes.

The main benefit of Enduring Spells was undoubtedly convenience since rebuffing used to take forever. BubbleBuff mod solves that problem. TTT makes Greater Enduring require 10 minutes to remove the temptation but you’re already better off getting your actual Mythics on time and putting in the effort to get the limited rest the game allows.

 

[Lambach]

The main benefit of Enduring Spells was undoubtedly convenience since rebuffing used to take forever.

Convenience and being able to free up some slots/casts for other Spells, since you won't have to re-buff between two rests (which you will have to do early-mid game in large locations if you play with absolute bare minimum resting, like I do). But yeah, other than that it's not very powerful.

Unless you hit Caster Level 25 and use Extend Metamagic. That way you hit the 5 minute (50 Rounds) duration mark needed to trigger Greater Enduring Spells for all those cool Round/Level buffs. 24-hour Haste sounds pretty good, as does 24-hour Greater Invisibility for easier Sneak Attacks, 24-hour double Geniekind for Elemental Barrage (or quadruple Geniekind for double Elemental Barrage) etc.

BubbleBuff mod solves that problem

I'll have to check this out, manually performing the same 15+ Buff rotation after every Rest is pretty tiresome after all this time.